The US House of Representatives is set to expedite a vote next week on legislation compelling China’s ByteDance to divest from short video app TikTok within six months or face a US ban.
The Energy and Commerce Committee has unanimously approved the measure Thursday with a 50-0 vote, representing the most significant push for a US crackdown on TikTok, Reuters reported.
Lawmakers will vote next week “to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist party,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on X.
Ahead of the vote, US lawmakers got a closed-door classified briefing on national security concerns about TikTok’s Chinese ownership, Reuters reported.
Representative Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the House select China committee, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the panel's top Democrat, introduced legislation to address national security concerns posed by Chinese ownership of the app.
The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok; if it did not, app stores operated by Apple, Google and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.
“TikTok could live on and people could do whatever they want on it provided there is that separation,” Gallagher said, urging US ByteDance investors to support a sale.
“It is not a ban - think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient in the process.”
TikTok has argued that the bill amounts to a ban and it is not clear if China would approve any sale, or that it could be divested in six months. The app says it has not and would not share US user data with the Chinese government.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” the company said after the vote.
“The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”
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In 2020, then US President Donald Trump tried to ban the app, which has about 170 million US users, but was unsuccessful as it was blocked by US courts. Earlier efforts were also stalled over the last year amid heavy lobbying by the company, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee, on Thursday said his hope was the law “will force divestment of TikTok and Americans will be able to continue to use this and other similarly situated platforms without the risk that they are being operated and controlled by our adversaries.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
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