China Select Committee in Congress launches bill to force ByteDance to sell its share in TikTok or be banned in the US

Leaders of the China Select Committee are pushing for a bipartisan bill that would force Chinese state-owned company ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok or face the popular video-sharing platform being banned in the US.

Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and top Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Calif., introduced the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would specifically designate ByteDance and TikTok as applications controlled by foreign adversaries.

The president would be the one to decide, in consultation with all federal agencies, whether to divest TikTok entirely.

The bill would also broaden the scope of the president’s powers generally by banning foreign adversary-controlled applications, calling out those with ties to China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

After signing the law, ByteDance would have more than five months to get rid of TikTok. If not, app stores and web hosting platforms are not allowed to distribute it in the US

Leaders of China’s select committee are pushing for a bipartisan bill that would force state-affiliated ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok or face banning the popular video-sharing platform

In a statement, TikTok called it an “outright ban on TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it.”

“This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”

The committee fired back, saying in a post on X: “The bill actually encourages TikTok to stay in America.”

The bill will be approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday in a sign of quick action on the legislation.

The committee is expected to vote to go into a secret executive session Thursday at 10 a.m. to discuss the bill, followed by a public adjournment starting at 2 p.m.

The bill has at least seventeen co-sponsors from both parties, giving it a good chance of becoming law if it is voted on.

Still, banning a very popular social media platform in an election year could prove difficult. TikTok has about 103 million users in the US, almost a third of the population.

“This is my message to TikTok: Break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” Gallagher said in a statement.

“America’s greatest adversary has nothing to do with controlling a dominant media platform in the United States. TikTok’s time in the United States is over unless it ends its relationship with CCP-controlled ByteDance.”

Krishnamoorthi said in his own statement: “As long as it is owned by ByteDance and thus has to cooperate with the CCP, TikTok poses a critical threat to our national security.”

Last year, a group of Republicans launched a bill that would ban TikTok entirely, but Democrats said the effort was hasty and would infringe on free speech rights.

Senators have introduced their own bills to ban or curb the platform, but none have gained enough traction to come to a vote.

Congress has already passed legislation to ban TikTok on government phones.

But last month, Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok.

The bill has at least seventeen co-sponsors from both parties, giving it a good chance of becoming law if it is voted on.

Last year, the White House supported legislation from Intel Commission Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and more than two dozen other senators that would have given the administration the power to ban foreign-based technologies if they pose a threat to national security. .

In 2020, former President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok, but the move was blocked by the courts.