A TikTok ban is again on the desk after the Home accepted a brand new invoice on Saturday, resolving a difficulty that had stalled within the Senate.
The invoice would enable the Biden administration to ban TikTok nationwide if it’s not spun off from its Chinese language proprietor ByteDance inside a yr. The invoice differs from an analogous invoice handed by the Home final month that gave TikTok an additional six months to discover a U.S. purchaser. The earlier invoice stalled within the Senate after Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell raised a number of points, together with a brief timeline for divestitures.
It handed simply, 360 votes to 58.
“This app is a spy balloon on Individuals’ telephones,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, stated Saturday as he launched the invoice within the Home of Representatives. “This can be a modern-day Malicious program… used to spy on and exploit private data in america.”
The backlash in opposition to TikTok has bipartisan assist. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., stated: “Nationwide safety specialists are sounding the alarm that our overseas adversaries are utilizing each device at their disposal, together with apps like TikTok, to gather huge quantities of delicate knowledge about all Individuals. “This invoice takes decisive motion to cut back the flexibility of our adversaries to gather knowledge on Individuals and use it in opposition to us.”
Digital freedom teams oppose a TikTok ban over First Modification considerations as a result of they imagine eliminating TikTok wouldn’t remedy basic issues with widespread knowledge assortment. “The one answer to this pervasive ecosystem is to ban the gathering of our knowledge within the first place,” the Digital Frontier Basis, a nonprofit digital rights group, wrote in an article final month. “In the end, overseas adversaries will nonetheless be capable of receive our knowledge from social media firms except these firms are prohibited from gathering, retaining and promoting this knowledge, utterly stopped.”
Even Elon Musk, the proprietor of X, has spoken out in opposition to the ban. “For my part, TikTok shouldn’t be banned in america, though such a ban might profit Platform X,” he posted on Friday. “To take action would violate freedom of speech and expression. This isn’t what America stands for.
Regardless, divestment or a ban now appears virtually sure. The brand new measure has been tacked on to a multibillion-dollar overseas help package deal concentrating on Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The help has been fast-tracked after Iran carried out a retaliatory assault on Israel final week, which is able to make it more durable for the Senate to keep away from passing it.
Cantwell supported the newest package deal, saying in an announcement Wednesday: “I’m happy that Speaker Johnson and Home leaders have adopted my suggestion to increase ByteDance’s divestment interval from six months to One yr. As I stated, extending the divestment interval is critical to make sure that new patrons have sufficient time to finish the transaction. I assist this up to date laws.
Congress has tried and didn’t pressure the sale of TikTok for years. Republicans and Democrats are involved that the app might pose a threat to U.S. nationwide safety by offering the Chinese language authorities with huge troves of U.S. consumer knowledge. However Congress has supplied little proof to assist these claims, and TikTok and its supporters argue that banning the app would violate free speech rights.