TikTok’s dancing on thin ice in the U.S. … with the House voting to ban the popular social media app — unless its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance sells its stake, that is.
A vote went down Wednesday and it was a landslide — 352 to 65 — in favor of the ban … a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, with 197 Republicans and 155 Democrats giving it the green light, citing the app’s Chinese ownership as a major national security threat.
U.S. House PASSES bill forcing on requiring TikTok to divest from China or face U.S. ban, 352-65. pic.twitter.com/K8NrCw50ti
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 13, 2024
@cspan
The House didn’t waste any time with the legislation — dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — but TikTok’s future still hangs in the balance … as it still has to make its way through the Senate, and then over to Joe Biden.
Lead sponsor of the TikTok bill, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) admits the real reason they’re rushing to ban TikTok — because it’s “becoming the dominant news platform for Americans under 30” and the US government doesn’t control it like other platforms pic.twitter.com/MQcD3PQd51
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 13, 2024
@mtracey
This current bill gives ByteDance a strict ultimatum — either sell off TikTok and its other apps within six months or face the chop from U.S. app stores and other web-hosting services.
Lawmakers have long been sweating bullets over fears the Chinese government could force ByteDance into handing over the data of its whopping 170M American users — even though TikTok has vehemently denied it’s snooping on U.S. citizens.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw didn’t pull any punches before the vote, saying … “TikTok is owned by ByteDance. ByteDance is in China and when you’re in China, you have to do whatever the Chinese Communist Party tells you what to do.”
He added, “If they want you to spy for them, you will spy for them; that’s how that works.”
However, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, is accusing the U.S. of running a smear campaign to bring down the China-based company — adding in a statement the U.S “has not been able to give hard evidence to prove the so-called threats from TikTok to U.S. national security.”
FWIW, Biden’s promising to put pen to paper on the bill if it lands on his desk. Nonetheless, it’s gonna be a nail-biter to see if this bill actually sticks, especially since TikTok’s survived previous ban attempts. We’re sure the influencers are shaking in their boots!