A law that would have forced the owner of TikTok, Byte Dance, to sell the social media site or face being entirely banned in the US was passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
According to foreign media, 353 votes were cast in favour of the TikTok crackdown bill, while 65 votes were cast against it. After the approval of the House of Representatives, this bill regarding the ban on TikTok will now go to the US Senate for approval.
The Chinese company Byte Dance has been given 61 days to separate from the TikTok app. The web hosting services of Byte Dance will be stopped if they do not distance themselves from TikTok.
The major cause behind this legislation is that the that ByteDance is under the influence of the Chinese government. Government representatives are concerned that TikTok's data collection from its approximately 170 million American users may be a threat to national security.
These worries have been reinforced by new national security legislation that China has implemented, which include the power to force organizations to cooperate with intelligence collection.
But Bytedance has often said that company runs without interference from the Chinese government.
US Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers on Wednesday stated that the legislation has “given TikTok a clear choice”.
She further said “Separate from your parent company ByteDance, which is beholden to the CCP [the Chinese Communist Party], and remain operational in the United States, or side with the CCP and face the consequences, The choice is TikTok’s.”
The bill's opponents on Wednesday raised issues regarding freedom of expression and referred to the action as a hasty attempt that falls short of meaningful reform.
Representative Barbara Lee, a progressive stalwart, posted on the social media platform X that “Rather than target one company in a rushed and secretive process, Congress should pass comprehensive data privacy protections and do a better job of informing the public of the threats these companies may pose to national security”.
The vote was "disappointing," according to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who also promised that the company will "do everything we can" to safeguard the platform, including "exercising legal rights."
