US House of Representatives Passes Bill to Ban or Force Sale of TikTok

The US House of Representatives has approved a bill that would require ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to sell its popular app or face a ban.

Earlier, in March, the House of Representatives already passed a similar bill, but it did not attract interest from the Senate. In the present case, the initiative was approved by 360 votes of both Republicans and Democrats.

The new version of the bill increases the deadline for the sale of TikTok for ByteDance to 9 months (instead of 6 months in the previous bill), and also provides for the possibility of a one-time extension of the deadline by 90 days at the discretion of the president.

The Senate plans to consider the bill next week, and President Joe Biden has already announced his readiness to sign it.

The Biden administration has notified lawmakers that TikTok poses a national security threat because the app could be used as a source of data on American users for the Chinese government, as well as a conduit for spreading propaganda.

In response, ByteDance said the House of Representatives is using important foreign aid and humanitarian aid issues as cover to push through a ban bill that would violate the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, bankrupt 7 million businesses and shut down the platform.

Civil liberties organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have also spoken out against efforts to ban the app.