This just in screen watchers: the House of Representatives has voted in favor of forcing Bytedance to sell TikTok to an American investor or else see it banned in the United States. Bytedpace, a Chinese-based tech company, is looking to take this to court rather than selling one of their most profitable assets.
The Senate is on track to vote on the status of the bill sometime next week. In addition to this, President Biden has indicated that he will sign the legislation once it reaches his desk.
This vote came in earlier this Saturday. The House voted in favor of this legislation by a whopping 360 to 58 bipartisan majority. The contrarians to this motion were equally bipartisan, with 33 being Democrats and 25 Republican. This particular bill was previously put forward on its own last March, giving TikTok six months to sell to a different company or else risk being banned in the US.
This time around, the motion to pressure Bytedance was included as part of a package including sanctions against Russia and Iran. This new bill extends this forced sale timeframe to nine months, with potential for more time if progress is thought to be made towards a sale. It was this increased leeway that supposedly swayed members of the House to an even greater majority vote.
Additional delays would be expected if TikTok were to take the matter to court and challenge it on First Amendment rights.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses and shutter a platform that contributed $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually,” TikTok policy representatives stated in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) earlier this week ahead of the vote.
This is just the latest milestone in a history of distrust among lawmakers regarding TikTok being a potential cause for security leaks. Since 2020, U.S. officials have expressed concerns regarding TikTok and it being used to facilitate information and security leaks on both personal and national levels. FBI Director Chris Wray has gone on record deriding the app due to its Chinese-owned affiliations, despite the company’s continued denial of any potential risks or affiliations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Pushback isn’t exclusively directed one-way on TikTok. As it is one of the most popular social media platforms in the current day, there is a great deal of criticism towards the seemingly lopsided stance that the federal government is taking on it.
“These videos are public, and there are hundreds of sites across the world that can track all of your information,” Elizabethtown College biochemistry major Amelia Ingersoll said. “What would really change if it was an American corporation that owned it?”
Even so, everyone is waiting with bated breath to see what the members of the Senate have to say regarding the fate of TikTok here in the U.S.
