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WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to pass legislation that TikTok could be banned In the United States, both Republicans and Democrats are sounding the alarm that the popular video-sharing application, owned by a company based in China, is a threat to national security.
The vote was 352-65, with one member, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, voting present. The bill now goes to the Senate, where he faces an uncertain destiny and there seems to be less urgency to act.
“Communist China is America’s greatest geopolitical enemy and is using technology to actively undermine America’s economy and security,” Chairman Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement after the vote, warning that TikTok could be used to access and disseminate US data. “harmful” information.
“Today’s bipartisan vote demonstrates Congress’ opposition to Communist China’s attempts to spy on and manipulate Americans, and signals our determination to deter our enemies.”
Fifty Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the bill. Among them were progressives such as Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; Ro Khanna, Democrat of California; and Rubén Gallego, D-Ariz., Senate candidate, as well as conservatives such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who lamented that she had previously been banned from social media.
The Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, was a surprising dissenting vote. He also cited free speech issues in the bill.
Adversaries like China “shut down newspapers, broadcast stations and social media platforms. We don’t,” Himes said in a statement. “We trust our citizens to be worthy of their democracy. We do not trust our government to decide what information they can or cannot see.”
TikTok, owned by China-based parent company ByteDance, has set up a aggressive lobbying campaign nullify the legislation, arguing that it would violate the First Amendment rights of its 170 million American users and harm thousands of small businesses that depend on it. “This process was secret and the bill was blocked for a reason: it is a ban.” said the company in X.
Paul Tran, who, along with his wife, runs a skin care company called Love and Pebble, protested at a pro-TikTok rally outside the Capitol on Tuesday, with a message to members: “You will be destroying small businesses like us “This is our livelihood. We have created success.”
He said his business almost closed last year until TikTok Shop came along and “totally blew up our business.” Now 90% of his business comes from the app, he said.
“If you pass this bill,” Tran said, “you will be destroying the American dream that we truly believe in.”
Despite that momentum, the bill passed the House, increasing pressure on the Democratic-led Senate to act. President Joe Biden, whose 2024 campaign joined TikTok last month, has said that if the bill reaches his desk, he will sign it into law. Aboard Air Force One on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the bill “important” and said the administration hopes the Senate will “take swift action.”
Supporters say it’s incorrect to call the legislation an outright ban. The bill, called the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, would create a process for the president, through the FBI and intelligence agencies, to designate certain social media apps under the control of foreign adversaries, such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. , as threats to national security.
Once an app was deemed a risk, it would be banned from online app stores and web hosting services unless it severed ties with entities under the foreign adversary’s control within 180 days of designation. That means TikTok, which FBI Director Christopher Wray testified poses a national security risk, could face a ban unless ByteDance acted quickly to get rid of it.
“What we are seeking is a separation of TikTok from its parent company, ByteDance, and by extension from the CCP,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the select committee investigating the Chinese Communist Party. . Tuesday as he emerged from a classified House-wide briefing on the dangers of TikTok. “And in that world, TikTok users can continue using the platform. In fact, I think it would allow for a better user experience.”
US lawmakers and intelligence officials are concerned that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access personal data of its millions of users and use algorithms to show them videos that could influence their opinions, including in the upcoming presidential election. Testifying before Congress a year ago, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew denies it that the Chinese government controls the app and rejected suggestions that China accesses American users’ data.
Asked about the bill ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that “despite the lack of evidence showing that TikTok poses a threat to China’s national security “The United States, the United States has continued to crack down on TikTok.”
“This practice of resorting to intimidation tactics when fair competition cannot be won disrupts normal business operations, damages international investors’ confidence in the investment environment and undermines the normal international economic and trade order, ultimately harming to the United States itself,” he continued.
In drafting the bill, Gallagher partnered with the top Democrat on the China panel, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, who consulted with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., an outspoken critic of human rights violations in China. throughout his long career.
“My concern is what TikTok has done in Taiwan, saying the Uyghurs love their genocide and the people of Hong Kong love their voter suppression,” Pelosi told reporters.
But he added: “We want TikTok to exist; we are not here to ban it. I have said that we want it to be Tik-Tok-Toe. We want it to be something that is not a scary social media platform, but one that is very positive. And to To do that, we have to see the divestment of the Chinese government that has possession of the data… Whoever controls the algorithm controls everything.”
Krishnamoorthi and Gallagher praised the bill’s passage in a joint statement and said they will work with the Senate to advance it as well.
“Today, a bipartisan group of members met to address the serious national security risk posed by TikTok,” they said. “We speak with one voice and convey the same message as the directors of the DIA, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and the head of the US Cyber Command: TikTok cannot continue to operate in the United States under its structure of current ownership”.
The billionaire social media giant’s presence was everywhere in the Capitol ahead of the House vote. TikTok users received pop-ups in the app urging them to call their local representatives, as well as push notifications saying, “Help stop TikTok being shut down.”
Outside the Capitol, a handful of young House Democrats — Robert Garcia and Sara Jacobs of California, Maxwell Frost of Florida, and Delia Ramirez of Illinois — gathered alongside TikTok creators to express their opposition to the bill.
Frost, 27, called himself a “no” to the bill and predicted that if the vote had been delayed a week, opposition would have increased.
JT Laybourne, one of the creators, said he is “disgusted” to hear lawmakers mock TikTok and its creators because millions of small businesses depend on it.
“My voice is on TikTok. My purpose is on TikTok. That’s all. “We can’t let this happen,” Laybourne pleaded.
CORRECTION (March 13, 2024, 2:22 p.m. ET) — An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a Democratic representative from California. This is Sara Jacobs, not Sarah.
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