©Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The TikTok app logo is seen in this illustration taken August 22, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday unanimously approved legislation giving China’s ByteDance six months to divest from short-video app TikTok or face a ban from of the United States.
The 50-0 vote represents the most significant momentum for a U.S. crackdown on TikTok, which has about 170 million U.S. users, which had stalled for the past year amid intense pressure from the company.
Lawmakers hope to move quickly on the measure and said the U.S. House of Representatives could pass the bill in the coming weeks.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban on TikTok in the United States,” the company said after the vote. “The government is attempting to deprive 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression. This will harm millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”
Before the vote, lawmakers received a confidential, closed-door briefing on national security concerns related to Chinese ownership of TikTok.
Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee, said Thursday that his hope is that the law “forces the divestment of TikTok and Americans will be able to continue using this and other similarly situated platforms without the risk that are managed and controlled”. from our adversaries.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the committee’s top Democrat, have introduced legislation to address national security concerns posed by Chinese ownership of the app.
“TikTok could live on and people could do what they want as long as there is that separation,” Gallagher said, urging ByteDance’s U.S. investors to support a sale. “It’s not a ban: think of it as surgery designed to remove the tumor and therefore save the patient.”
TikTok users are flooding Capitol Hill with calls urging lawmakers not to support the measure, a congressional aide said.
Asked whether the bill could impact the US operations of Tencent’s WeChat, which then-President Donald Trump sought to ban in 2020, Gallagher said he would not speculate but said “in the future we can discuss which companies are included” in the bill.
The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok; otherwise, app stores operated by Apple (NASDAQ:), Google (NASDAQ:) and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to applications controlled by ByteDance.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre praised the proposal on Wednesday, saying the administration wants “to see this bill passed so it can get to the president’s desk.”
The app is popular, and getting legislation passed in an election year could be difficult. Last month, Democratic President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign joined TikTok.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who last year proposed a separate bill to give the White House new powers over TikTok, said he has “some concerns about the constitutionality of an approach that names specific companies” but will review “from close to this aspect”. I count.”
A U.S. judge in late November blocked Montana’s first such state ban on TikTok, saying it violated users’ free speech rights.
In March 2023, the US Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) asked TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell their shares or face the possibility of the app being banned, Reuters reported, but l The administration took no action.
TikTok says it has not and will not share US user data with the Chinese government.
The new bill aims to strengthen the legal authority to address TikTok. Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, attempted to ban TikTok in 2020 but was blocked by US courts.