House Gives TikTok Ultimatum – Separate From China Or Face Ban

The US House of Representatives is supposed to vote on a bill requiring TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or receive a ban in the United States.

The bill seeks to protect the privacy of Americans from China, which is thought to be using the social media app to spy on Americans.

Watch what MSNBC has to say:

TO WATCH: House will vote today on a bipartisan bill that could ban TikTok in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/zSevGPX1BZ

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) March 13, 2024

The folks at Fox Business share more:

The House of Representatives is expected to hold a vote Wednesday morning on the bill that would require TikTok to be divested from its China-based parent company ByteDance or face a ban over national security concerns.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was introduced last week by Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., who are the bipartisan leaders of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill seeks to block apps controlled by foreign adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

If enacted, the bill would give ByteDance six months to sell TikTok to an entity outside of China, and if it fails to do so, U.S. companies that operate app stores like Google and Apple or host websites would be required to ban TikTok. The app has raised concerns about its potential to serve as a propaganda and surveillance tool due to ByteDance’s CCP links, as well as concerns about its algorithm surfacing harmful content to young users.

Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the bill on a unanimous 50-0 vote, and it is likely to pass the full House on a bipartisan vote. President Biden also indicated he would sign the bill into law if it reaches its desk – though it faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.

The bill has caused a whole lot of backlash online.

TikTok creators have begun to protest outside of Congress, hoping to sway the Representatives’ votes.

TikTok supporters gather on the Hill protesting House vote that threatens to ban the app, shouting “keep TikTok” pic.twitter.com/71G6st8iHa

— Oma Seddiq (@omaseddiq) March 13, 2024

‘Squad’ member AOC has more to say:

Banning TikTok isn’t the solution to data privacy concerns. Instead, Congress needs to focus on regulating social media companies’ unchecked habit of collecting user data without their consent. pic.twitter.com/DASSeTeMCT

— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) March 25, 2023

Congress needs to do both.

We should ban companies selling our data to our adversaries, China, while also cracking down and preventing social media platforms from collecting all of our data.

Surprisingly, President Trump has come out in opposition to the bill.

CNN shares more:

When Trump was president, he supported calls to ban the app, but he appears to have now backed away from that stance, though his rhetoric has at times sent seemingly mixed messages.

In a post on Truth Social last week, Trump expressed opposition to a ban, arguing that if TikTok were out of the picture, Facebook would benefit as he attacked Facebook and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as an “Enemy of the People.”

In a Monday interview with CNBC, Trump said it was a “tough decision” whether the US should ban TikTok and continued to argue that getting rid of it would benefit Facebook, adding that he thought, “Facebook has been very bad for our country.”

Trump said he thought TikTok posed a national security threat to the US but said, “You have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies too,” and “There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it.”

“There’s, you know, a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok,” Trump said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who support the bill have argued that it is not a ban.

Perhaps what needs to happen is not a ban on TikTok but stricter regulations on what data TikTok and other social media platforms are allowed to collect.