US House of Representatives votes overwhelmingly to ban TikTok
In the US House of Representatives, an overwhelming majority across both parties has approved a bill that could lead to a national ban on TikTok. The bill now goes to the Senate. If they also approve it, parent company ByteDance will have six months to sell the US branch of TikTok. If not, the popular application will be banned.
The fight against the application, used by some 170 million Americans, has ramped up in recent months as concerns over Chinese government surveillance grow. The bill accepted by the House of Representatives will ban TikTok in US appstores Play Store by Google and Apple’s App Store. Only if the US branch of TikTok is spun off from its parent company ByteDance will the ban not go through. Such a sale does not seem to be an option in China for now.
In the House of Representatives, 352 politicians voted for and 65 against. Those opposed included 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans.
The bill’s opponents were a mix of represententative on the fringes of the US political spectrum. ON the left is the Democratic Squad, whose best-known representatives include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. On the far-right Republicans such as Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and other members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus also voted against a ban.
In doing so, the latter followed the advice of Donald Trump, who fears that a ban on TikTok will make Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – even more powerful. That turnaround is quite remarkable since Trump himself was still pushing for a ban or sale in 2020. A group around top executives from Walmart and Oracle seemed willing to buy the US branch of TikTok at the time, but interest waned due to legal problems and the end of Trump’s presidency.
Now that the House has passed the bill, it’s up to the Senate. It is difficult to estimate how they will vote. If the Senate also approves the ban, the bill will go to President Joe Biden. The latter already indicated that he would agree to such a ban.
If the bill is fully accepted, ByteDance will have 165 days to sell the US branch of TikTok. In the meantime, the app will try to motivate its users to oppose any ban.
If such a sale fails, TikTok will no longer be available in app stores in the US. Via workarounds, the app will then be available for a while, but after updates, even that will not last.
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