US moves a step closer to TikTok ban with unanimous vote

The US is one step away from banning TikTok after a 50-0 vote in favour of forcing the platform’s parent company to sell it or face the app being blocked.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s vote represents the most significant step towards a US crackdown on TikTok, which has about 170 million users in the country.

Next week, the US House of Representatives will fast-track the vote, which would give ByteDance, which owns the popular app, six months to divest itself or face a US ban.

The US has an uncomfortable relationship with the app. Former president Donald Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to ban the app in 2020, but was blocked by the courts.

Government employees in many states are banned from using the app on work devices, while the state of Montana has also attempted to ban it for all users.

Concern mainly lies over fears the company will share data with the Chinese government.

House majority leader Steve Scalise said on X lawmakers will vote next week ‘to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist party’.

TikTok maintains it will not share US data with authorities, and argues 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 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.’

Before the vote, the lawmakers had a closed-door classified briefing on national security concerns about TikTok’s Chinese ownership.

Representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee, 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’.

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.

‘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 tumour and thereby save the patient in the process.’

The potential ban does not sit well with users, and Capitol Hill was flooded with phone calls urging lawmakers not to back the ban.

However, it may not be just TikTok that could be caught in the net, as when asked if the bill could impact the US operations of Tencent’s WeChat, which Trump sought to ban in 2020, Gallagher said he would not say, but added that ‘going forward, we can debate what companies fall’ under the bill.

However, TikTok still proves to be popular across the nation – even at the highest level. Last month, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign joined the app.

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