A bill that could effectively ban TikTok in the US if its parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell it is being fast-tracked through the House of Representatives, amid reports that US President Joe Biden has given it his support.
This despite the fact that the bill is garnering growing opposition from civil liberties and tech industry groups, and amid an aggressive campaign by TikTok to mobilize its users to pressure lawmakers not to pass the legislation.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act passed unanimously (50-0) through the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, and is headed for full a vote on the floor of the House this week.
If passed into law, the bill would give ByteDance 165 days – or just over five months – to divest its holdings in TikTok; otherwise, it would become illegal for app stores to offer the TikTok app, and for web hosting services to provide services to TikTok.
President Joe Biden has signaled that he is ready to support the legislation.
“It’s not a ban. It puts the choice squarely in the hands of TikTok to sever their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party… Think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient in the process.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI)
“If they pass it, I’ll sign it,” President Biden told reporters, according to CBS News.
However, no companion bill has been presented in the US Senate so far, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Democrat from Washington state who heads up the Senate Commerce Committee, has not committed to introducing such a bill.
“I will be talking to my Senate and House colleagues to try to find a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties,” she said in a statement to CNN.
National security concerns
Amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, lawmakers have become increasingly concerned that ByteDance has – or could – hand over data on US users to Beijing. Chinese law requires domestic corporations, such as ByteDance, to hand over data to the government upon request.
Some lawmakers have expressed concern that Beijing could use its access to TikTok to spy on Americans or sow disinformation into the US media ecosystem, although so far, the US government hasn’t provided any evidence that this has or could happen.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told Congress last year that TikTok does not hand over US user data to the Chinese government, and stressed the fact the company is planning to shift US users’ data to servers run by Oracle and located in Texas.
This hasn’t alleviated the concerns of many lawmakers. Ahead of the vote in the House and Energy and Commerce Committee last week, lawmakers were briefed by national security officials in a closed-door session.
“I take the concerns raised by the intelligence community this morning very seriously,” said House Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee. “They have asked Congress to give them more authority to act in these narrowly defined situations, and I believe that this bill will do that.”
Lawmakers flooded with calls
As the bill rolls through the House, TikTok has taken to its own platform to convince users to pressure lawmakers to reject the legislation.
The company has launched pop-up screens on the platform, notifying users of the bill and warning of a “total ban” on TikTok in the US, which would “damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.”
The pop-up allows users to enter their zip code, then the user’s local House representative, urging users to let them “know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO.”
The result has been a flood of calls to House members.
“Phones are completely bogged down hearing from students, young adults, adults, and business owners who are all concerned at the option of losing their access to the platform,” a senior Republican aide told Axios.
However, another insider in Congress told the news site that the campaign is “backfiring as members are livid about all the calls and misinformation.”
CNN reports that it was told by a Republican insider that many of the calls appear to be coming from teenagers and the elderly, who appear to be “confused” about the nature of the legislation.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States. The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
TikTok
The TikTok campaign has been met with fury from some of the legislation who sponsored it, including Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Illinois Democrat who co-sponsored the legislation with Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican.
TikTok “has launched a massive propaganda campaign, requiring users to call their representatives, and falsely labeling our legislation a ‘total ban’ of TikTok,” Krishnamoorthi wrote on X.
“It’s not a ban,” Gallagher said, as quoted by CNN. “It puts the choice squarely in the hands of TikTok to sever their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. As long as ByteDance no longer owns the company, TikTok can continue to survive. People can continue to do all the dumb dance videos they want on the platform, or communicate with their friends, and all that stuff. But the basic ownership structure has to change.”
Gallagher added, per Reuters: “Think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient in the process.”
Opposition from TikTok, tech companies, civil liberties groups
However, TikTok has proven uncompromising in its stance against the bill.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” the company said in a statement on X. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
The bill is also being opposed by civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a group that represents Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta Platforms, among others.
“We’re deeply disappointed that our leaders are once again attempting to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year,” ACLU senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff said in a statement.
“Just because the bill sponsors claim that banning TikTok isn’t about suppressing speech, there’s no denying that it would do just that. We strongly urge legislators to vote no on this unconstitutional bill.”
“These proposals would also set a dangerous precedent that could invite foreign governments to follow suit in enacting problematic laws that assert control over social media websites.”
Computer & Communications Industry Association
The notion that the bill violates free speech rights guaranteed in the US Constitution also got the backing of the CCIA.
“The internet as a medium of communication may be new, but the principles at stake have not changed in more than 200 years. The government may not tell private parties, including digital service companies, what speech they may publish. The First Amendment forbids it,” CCIA Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff Stephanie Joyce said in a statement.
“With its harsh civil penalties and threat of U.S. Attorney General investigations, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act would infringe the First Amendment rights of private businesses, including websites and app stores, to curate and display content they believe is appropriate for their communities.
“These proposals would also set a dangerous precedent that could invite foreign governments to follow suit in enacting problematic laws that assert control over social media websites.”
US efforts at addressing the perceived threat of TikTok go back to 2020, when the Donald Trump administration attempted to force ByteDance to sell the short video platform. That effort stalled in the courts.
In 2023, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act, which would have enabled the president to designate certain businesses a national security risk, giving the executive the power to take action up to and including a ban.
That bill stalled in the Senate, amid concerns over its constitutionality and heavy lobbying by TikTok.
Referring to the latest bill, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, who co-sponsored the RESTRICT Act in the Senate last year, said he has “some concerns about the constitutionality of an approach that names specific companies,” but will take “a close look at this bill,” Reuters reported.
The dispute over TikTok in Congress comes as the company’s dispute with Universal Music Group continues, with no immediate end in sight.
With the two companies having failed to agree on a licensing agreement for UMG’s music on the platform, UMG’s recorded music disappeared from the platform at the end of January. UMG’s music publishing catalog began to disappear from the platform a month later.
Senior music industry sources have told MBW that somewhere between 60% and 80% of “relevant repertoire” on TikTok – i.e. current and proven hits – will be impacted by TikTok’s removal of UMG’s (combined) publishing and recorded music repertoire.
A TikTok spokesperson disagreed with this estimate, however. They told us that “in the US and UK, UMG and UMPG combined [comprises] approximately 30% of popular music on the platform, and even less everywhere else”.Music Business Worldwide
