- The bill would also expand the scope of the president’s powers to ban other apps controlled by foreign adversaries from Iran, China, North Korea and Russia.
- ByteDance would have more than five months after the law was signed to divest from TikTok
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Leaders on the China Select Committee are pushing a bipartisan bill that would force Chinese state-affiliated ByteDance to sell its TikTok shares or else the popular video-sharing platform will be banned across the United States.
Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and top Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Calif., introduced the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, which would specifically designate ByteDance and TikTok as apps controlled by foreign adversaries.
The president would be the one to decide, in coordination with all federal agencies, whether TikTok would be sold entirely.
The bill would also expand the scope of the president’s general powers to ban apps controlled by foreign adversaries, excluding those affiliated with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
ByteDance would have more than five months after the law was signed to divest from TikTok. If not, app stores and web hosting platforms will not be able to distribute it in the US.
It will be flagged by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday in a sign of quick action for the legislation.
The committee is expected to vote to hold a classified executive session at 10 a.m. to discuss the bill on Thursday, followed by a public session starting at 2 p.m.
China select committee leaders are pushing a bipartisan bill that would force state-affiliated ByteDance to sell its TikTok shares or else the popular video-sharing platform would be banned.
The bill has at least 17 bipartisan cosponsors, giving it a good chance of becoming law if it comes to a vote.
Still, banning a popular social media platform in an election year could prove difficult. TikTok has around 103 million users in the United States, almost a third of the population.
“This is my message to TikTok: break with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” Gallagher said in a statement.
‘America’s main adversary does not have to control a dominant media platform in the United States. TikTok’s time in the United States is over unless it ends its relationship with CCP-controlled ByteDance.
Krishnamoorthi said in his own statement: “As long as it is owned by ByteDance and therefore obligated to collaborate with the CCP, TikTok poses critical threats to our national security.”
Last year, a group of Republicans launched a bill that would ban TikTok entirely, but Democrats said the effort was rushed and would violate free speech rights.
Senators have introduced their own bills to ban or curb the platform, but none have gained enough traction to be put to a vote.
Congress has already passed legislation to ban TikTok on government phones.
But last month, Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok.
The bill has at least 17 bipartisan cosponsors, giving it a good chance of becoming law if it comes to a vote.
Last year, the White House backed legislation introduced by Intel Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and more than two dozen other senators that would have given the administration the power to ban foreign technologies if they posed threats. to national security. .
In 2020, former President Donald Trump attempted to ban TikTok, but that move was blocked by the courts.