House Passes Bill That Could Lead to Ban of TikTok in U.S.

House Passes Bill That Could Lead to Ban of TikTok in U.S.

Could TikTok be banned in the United States?

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bipartisan bill that would force China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok -- or face a ban in America.

The measure passed on 352-65-1 vote; U.S. Congressmen Seth Magaziner (D-RI) and Gabe Amo (D-RI) voted in favor of the measure. 

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“The House passed the bill in a decisive and bipartisan fashion and it’s now appropriate for the Senate to evaluate the merits of the legislation,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) during a press briefing after the House passed the bill.

Jeffries said that the legislation itself did not outright ban TikTok but rather required the app’s divestiture from its China-based owner ByteDance so that it could be “owned by an American company that would protect the data and the privacy of the American consumer from malignant foreign interests like the Chinese Communist Party.”

 

State of Play

"Why it matters," reported Axios. "The legislation has moved fast. It was introduced last week and the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously to advance it to the floor just days later. But it lacks a companion bill in the Senate, where lawmakers are still weighing the measure."

Axios says companion legislation faces an "uphill climb" in the Senate.

"Any attempt to fast-track the bill in the upper chamber would likely be blocked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who views the legislation as unconstitutional," reported Axios. "But in a major coup for the House, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — the top two senators on the Intelligence Committee — issued a statement Wednesday supporting the bill."