Oliver Johnson
washington – A law that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok cleaned the Senate on Tuesday night in a bipartisan vote of 79-18, posing one of the most serious threats to the hugely popular social media app’s U.S. operations.
Some lawmakers insist they don’t actually want to ban the platform used by about 170 million Americans, arguing that the choice lies with TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance.
To keep TikTok operating in the US, ByteDance must sell its stake in TikTok, and has up to a year to do so, according to the legislation, which was signed into law on Wednesday by President Biden. But the Chinese government, which would have to approve any sale, opposes a forced sale. Without a divestment, the company would lose access to app stores and web hosting providers, effectively banning it in the US. The timeline could be lengthened by an expected legal battle.
“This is not an effort to take away your voice. … This is not a ban on a service you enjoy,” said Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a speech on Tuesday, acknowledging that many Americans are skeptical of legislation. “Ultimately, they didn’t see what Congress saw.”
Why does Congress want to ban TikTok?
Lawmakers are suspicious of the video-sharing app’s ties to China and have tried to regulate it, although previous efforts to broadly restrict it have been unsuccessful. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that TikTok threatens national security because the Chinese government could use it to spy on Americans or weaponize it to covertly influence the U.S. public by amplifying or suppressing certain content.
The concern is justified, U.S. officials say, because Chinese national security laws require organizations to cooperate in intelligence gathering. FBI Director Christopher Wray told members of the House Intelligence Committee in March that the Chinese government could compromise Americans’ devices through software.
“This app is a spy balloon on Americans’ phones” that is “used to surveil and exploit Americans’ personal information,” Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Saturday before the lower chamber. passed the bill as part of a broader foreign aid package.
In confidential briefings, lawmakers learned “how rivers of data are being collected and shared in ways that are not well aligned with American security interests,” Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said Tuesday.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last month that the Chinese government has the ability to influence “a lot of young people” who use TikTok as their main source of news.
“This is a national security concern,” Rubio said.
Warner said Tuesday that the fact that Chinese diplomats were pressuring congressional staff against the legislation, which was first reported by Politicalshows “how expensive [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is investing in this product.”
Senate Minority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, called the lobbying effort “a stunning confirmation of the value the Chinese government places on its ability to access Americans’ information and shape their experience on TikTok.” .
Arguments against banning TikTok
TikTok has denied being beholden to the Chinese government and accused lawmakers who want to restrict it of trampling on citizens’ free speech rights. TikTok has promised to launch a legal challenge, calling the law “unconstitutional.”
“We will continue to fight, as this legislation is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans on TikTok and would have devastating consequences for the 7 million small businesses that use TikTok to reach new customers, sell their products, and create new jobs. This is the beginning, not the end of this long process,” TikTok executive Michael Beckerman said in an internal company memo obtained by CBS News and sent to TikTok staff on Saturday.
In a video released on Wednesday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said that “the facts and the Constitution are on our side and we hope to prevail again.” He said the company has invested billions of dollars to protect user data and “keep our platform free from external manipulation.”
TikTok started an initiative known as “Project Texas” in 2022 to protect American users’ data on servers in the US and ease lawmakers’ fears. But Warner argued on Tuesday that the initiative was insufficient because it would still allow TikTok’s algorithm and source code to remain in China, making them “subject to exploitation by the Chinese government.”
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said Tuesday on the Senate floor that TikTok poses national security risks, but the legislation amounted to “censorship” because it could deny Americans access to a platform they trust for news. , business purposes, building a community and connecting with others.
“We must be very clear about the likely outcome of this bill,” Markey said. “It’s actually just a TikTok ban. And once we properly recognize that this bill is a ban on TikTok, we can better see its impact on free speech.”
Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, wrote in a recent opinion article that the law could be a gateway for the government to force the sale of other companies.
“If the damage to one company were not enough, there is a very real danger that this clumsy attack on TikTok could actually give the government the power to force the sale of other companies,” he wrote and predicted that the Supreme Court will ultimately , decide that the law is unconstitutional.
Nikole Killion and Alan He contributed to this report.
