WASHINGTON D.C.: After the Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved a related measure last week, the U.S. House of Representatives said it will fast-track a vote next week on legislation that would give Chinese company ByteDance six months to divest from short video app TikTok or be banned from the U.S.
The 50-0 vote is the latest in the U.S. crackdown against TikTok, which has some 170 million users nationwide.
Previous efforts to ban the app, such as former president Trump’s attempt in 2020, have stalled due to heavy lobbying by the company.
On X, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said lawmakers will vote next week “to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist party.”
TikTok claimed that it does not share U.S. users’ data with the Chinese government and that the bill amounts to a ban. The company added that it is also not clear if China would approve any sale or that it could be divested in six months.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the U.S.,” the company said after the vote.
Democrat Representative Frank Pallone, member of the committee, said 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.”
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 about Chinese ownership of TikTok.
“TikTok could live on, and people could do whatever they want on it provided there is that separation,” Gallagher said.
U.S. ByteDance investors should also support a sale, he added, stating, “It is not a ban. Think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient in the process.”
Under the bill, if ByteDance did not divest TikTok in 165 days, app stores operated by Apple, Google, and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to ByteDance apps.
In March 2023, the Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) demanded ByteDance sell its TikTok shares or face a ban against the app.
