By KEVIN FREKING and HALELUYA HADERO (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers in the House are quickly getting behind a bill that may result in the popular video-sharing app TikTok not being available in the United States. They are worried about the potential for the platform to spy on and control Americans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson supports the measure and it could soon come up for a full vote in the House. The bill advanced out of committee Thursday in a unanimous bipartisan vote — 50-0.
The White House has helped in the drafting of the bill, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the TikTok legislation still needs some work to get to a place where President Joe Biden would endorse it.
The bill has two parts. First, it requires ByteDance Ltd., which is based in Beijing, to sell TikTok and other apps it controls within 180 days of the bill being enacted, or those apps will be banned in the United States. Second, it creates a specific process to let the executive branch stop access to an app owned by a foreign enemy if it poses a threat to national security.
“It’s an important, bipartisan measure to take on China, our biggest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security,” Johnson said Thursday.
Some lawmakers and critics of TikTok have argued the Chinese government could make the company share data on American users. TikTok says it has never done that and wouldn’t do so if asked. The U.S. government also hasn’t provided evidence of that happening.
Critics also claim the app could be used to spread false information that benefits Beijing.
Former President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok through executive order, but the courts stopped the action after TikTok sued, arguing such actions would violate free speech and due process rights.
TikTok raised similar concerns about the legislation gaining momentum in the House.
“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample 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,” the company said in a prepared statement.
The bill’s author, Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of a special House committee focused on China, rejected TikTok’s assertion of a ban. Rather, he said it’s an effort to force a change in TikTok’s ownership. He also took issue with TikTok urging some users to call their representatives and urge them to vote no on the bill.
The notification urged TikTok users to “speak up now — before your government strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.” The notification also warned that the “ban” of TikTok would damage millions of businesses and destroy the lives of countless creators around the country.
TikTok users responded by flooding the offices of lawmakers with telephone calls. Some offices even shut off their phones because of the onslaught. A congressional aide not authorized to speak on the matter publicly said that lawmakers on the committee voting on the bill Thursday as well as others were inundated with calls.
Representative Gallagher said that today the focus is on their bill and intimidating members who are considering the bill. However, he warned that tomorrow it could be misinformation or lies about an election, a war, or many other things. This is why the US can't take the risk of having a dominant news platform controlled by a company beholden to the Chinese Communist Party, our top adversary.
The bill is coming about a year after TikTok’s CEO faced tough questioning from skeptical lawmakers about data security and harmful content. The same committee met on Thursday to discuss and vote on the bill.
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the committee’s Republican chair, stated that TikTok's access to many Americans makes it a valuable propaganda tool for the Chinese government to exploit. She also pointed out that its parent company ByteDance is currently under investigation by the US Department of Justice for surveilling American journalists.
Rodgers stated that through this access, the app is able to gather almost every imaginable data point, from people's location to their device search history, connections, and other sensitive information.
In response to lawmakers' concerns, TikTok has pledged to separate US user data from its parent company through an independent entity, monitored by outside observers. TikTok claims that new user data is now stored on servers managed by the software company Oracle.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other free speech advocacy groups have urged lawmakers to reject the TikTok bill. They stated in a letter to the Energy and Commerce Committee’s leadership that passing this legislation would violate the constitutional right to freedom of speech of millions of people in the United States.
Biden’s reelection campaign has created a TikTok account to appeal to young voters, despite ongoing security concerns about the app potentially sharing user data with China’s communist government.
Jean-Pierre from the White House expressed support for lawmakers’ efforts on the TikTok legislation, but emphasized the need for continued work on it.
She also defended the White House’s efforts to limit the dangers of TikTok, even as the president engages with influencers on the social-media platform and his campaign hosts a TikTok account.
Jean-Pierre said that the White House aims to connect with the American people, including reaching out to everyone. She emphasized that the president is for all Americans, but that they will also seek ways to protect national security.
A bill with the potential to make the popular video-sharing app TikTok unavailable in the United States is gaining momentum in the House as lawmakers express concerns about the platform's ability to surveil and manipulate Americans.
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