On Wednesday, members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to ban TikTok in the United States unless the Chinese-owned app is sold to an American company. The ban, which has the support of President Joe Biden but must clear the Senate before becoming law, comes as members of both parties warn that the Chinese government could access American users’ data through the app.
Large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats voted 352-65 to pass the proposed legislation, which would ban TikTok from operating in the United States unless it is sold to a U.S.-based company. The popular, Chinese-owned social media app has been painted as a potential national security threat by both parties. TikTok is owned by Chinese-based company ByteDance, and Chinese law could allow the Chinese government to demand access to user data and potentially use such data for spying or blackmail purposes.
The vote by the House is the latest move against TikTok in the United States. Former President Donald Trump was once a leading voice in the call to ban TikTok, labeling it a tool for the Chinese government to spy on Americans. This was part of Trump’s larger rhetoric against China, which he painted as a dangerous adversary and also blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic. While in office, Trump attempted to ban TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold the U.S. version of the app to an American company; the former president also attempted to ban the Chinese-owned messaging platform WeChat, but both orders were blocked in federal court, leaving TikTok and WeChat to operate freely within the United States. Most states in the United States ban the TikTok app from being used on government devices. A 2023 statewide ban on TikTok passed by the Republican-led government in Montana to “protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance” was blocked by a federal judge as being unconstitutional and exceeding the state’s power.
The Chinese government rejects this speculation, calling the ban “bullying” and a result of American companies being unable to compete with TikTok, which has 170 million users in the U.S. TikTok, meanwhile, has said the ban will hurt millions of businesses that use the platform. Content creators have called the ban an attack on free speech and many of these creators, some of whom have millions of followers, have spoken out against the ban and how it could impact their income.
Trump has changed his stance on TikTok after having previously tried to ban it. Trump’s shifting position is based on his growing feud with Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg; Trump has increasingly blamed Facebook for his 2020 election loss, and Trump sees TikTok as a social media rival to Facebook and its parent company, Meta. “I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better,” Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform. He has also reportedly been told that many of his supporters use TikTok.
The bill now has to be passed by the Senate. It is unclear whether or not there are enough senators willing to pass the ban, and it remains to be seen if opposition from TikTok creators will sway senators to block the ban. If the bill does pass in the Senate, Biden has indicated that he will sign the ban into law.
