TikTok faces ban in the US

The bill is the first major legislative move in nearly a year to ban or force TikTok's parent company ByteDance to sell the popular app, after a Senate bill to ban the app stalled in Congress last year amid intense lobbying from TikTok.

Mike Gallagher, a Republican who chairs the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and China, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a top Democrat, are among more than a dozen lawmakers who introduced the bill.

“Here’s my message to TikTok: Cut ties with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to American users,” said Mike Gallagher. “America’s main adversary does not have control of a dominant media platform in America.”

The bill would require ByteDance to sell TikTok, which is used by more than 170 million Americans, within 165 days. It would also make it illegal to offer TikTok or web hosting services for ByteDance-controlled apps on the app stores of Apple, Google and others.

“This bill is essentially a ban on TikTok, no matter how hard US lawmakers try to hide it. This bill would violate the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,” a ByteDance spokesperson said on March 5.

Meanwhile, a White House National Security Council spokesman called the bill an important and welcome step, and said the Biden administration would work with Congress to further advance the bill and put it on the strongest possible legal footing.

The administration has been working with lawmakers from both parties to combat threats from technology services operating in the United States that pose risks to Americans' sensitive data and national security, the official added.

Responding to this issue, TikTok representatives said they have not and will not share US user data with the Chinese government.

Regarding this issue, Ms. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Chairwoman of the US Energy and Commerce Committee, said that the bill will "prevent hostile foreign forces, such as China, from spying and manipulating the American people" through online applications such as TikTok.

However, the popularity of this application in the US could make it difficult to pass this bill in the 2024 election year. Last month, US President Joe Biden officially "opened the channel" TikTok to increase the power of the 2024 US election campaign, despite the US government criticizing this Chinese social network.

The bill would give the president new powers to designate apps of concern that pose a risk to national security and put them at risk of being banned or restricted unless ownership is transferred.

The bill says the affected apps are those with more than one million annual active users and are under the control of a foreign adversary entity.

Concerns about Chinese-owned TikTok sparked efforts in Congress last year to address the risks posed by the short-form video-sharing app or potentially ban it. In late 2022, Congress banned federal employees from using the TikTok platform on government devices.

Last year, the US administration backed a bill sponsored by Senator Mark Warner and more than 20 senators that would give the government new powers to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies if they pose a national security risk.

In March 2023, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) asked TikTok's Chinese owners to sell their stake or face the possibility of the app being banned, but the administration of US President Joe Biden has yet to move to implement this request.

The new bill aims to strengthen the legal authority to address concerns about TikTok. US courts previously blocked an attempt by former President Donald Trump to ban TikTok in 2020.

Late last November, a US judge blocked the state of Montana's first TikTok ban, saying it violated users' free speech rights.