March 13 (UPI) — A bill that would ban TikTok from U.S. app stores unless it is sold off by Chinese company ByteDance is expected to get a House floor vote Wednesday.
At the heart of the bill is the belief among supportive lawmakers that it poses a national security threat to the United States because data collected by the app on roughly 170 million American users could be accessed by the Chinese government.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has not committed to taking up the bill in the Senate, preferring to wait and see what the House does.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., has expressed confidence that the bill will pass in the House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., supports the bill.
President Joe Biden said he intends to sign the legislation if Congress passes it.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday TikTok does pose a national security threat.
“Americans need to ask themselves whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control access to their data, whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control the information they get through the recommendation algorithm,” Wray said.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., Chair of a House select committee on China disputes that the bipartisan bill amounts to a ban. He calls it a divestiture.
“What the bill does is give TikTok a simple choice,” Gallagher wrote on X. “Either side with its users…and allow people to speak free from the fear of propaganda or censorship, or side with the Chinese Communist Party.”
He said the bill addresses national security issues while still protecting Americans’ free speech rights.
TikTok opposes the bill that would give ByteDance 165 days to spin off the app.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” the Chinese-owned company said in a statement on X. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
TikTok CEO Shou Chew last year testified to Congress that the app doesn’t share user information with the Chinese government even as he acknowledged that TikTok collected American user data in the past and some of it was still on servers ByteDance could access.
Former President Donald Trump signed an executive order during his time in office that would have banned TikTok from U.S. app stores but it was blocked by a federal judge as ByteDance sued arguing the ban violates the First Amendment.
Trump, who is on course for a presidential election rematch with Biden in November, has since altered his stance, maintaining that TikTok poses a national security threat but saying banning the app would benefit Meta and its flagship Facebook platform.
