What’s up with the new bill that could ban TikTok?

TikTok faces uncertainty Fate has struck America again.

After a surprising flurry of activity in the House of Representatives this week, TikTok is the target of a renewed push by the government to separate the company from its Chinese ownership or force it out of China.

TikTok is based in Los Angeles and Singapore but is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. The relationship has raised concerns among U.S. officials, who have warned that the app could be used to advance the interests of adversaries.

What happened this week?

This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced a new bill aimed at forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok.

The legislation, known as the Protecting Americans from Applications Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, would make it illegal to distribute software linked to U.S. adversaries domestically. (Ownerships of hostile state entities, such as China’s ByteDance, also count.)

The bill specifically names TikTok, and in the bill’s language, “it shall be unlawful for any entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or permit distribution, maintenance, or update) an application controlled by a foreign adversary.” If the bill becomes law, Apple’s App Store and Google Play will not be able to legally distribute the app in the United States

The bill, justifiably described as a “ban” by many critics, would force ByteDance to sell TikTok within six months so that the app can continue to operate in the United States. It also authorizes the president to oversee the process to ensure that the companies involved “are no longer under the control of foreign adversaries.”

After learning of the bill’s rapid and sudden advance in Congress, TikTok sent out a massive in-app message to U.S. users on Thursday morning, complete with a button to call their representatives.

“Speak up now before your government strips 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech,” the message read. “Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote no.”

Despite TikTok’s decision to anger its users — or perhaps because of it — a bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a 50-0 vote on Thursday. Now, the fast-track bill has passed committee and is expected to come up for a full vote on the House floor next week.

Prior to the vote, subcommittee members held confidential briefings with the FBI, Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence at the request of the Biden administration, Punchbowl News reported.

This week, President Biden also made it clear that he would sign the bill if it reaches his desk. “If they pass, I will sign it,” Biden told a group of reporters on Friday.

Why does the United States call TikTok a threat?

To be clear, there is currently no public evidence that China has used TikTok to store data on Americans or otherwise compromised the app.

Still, that fact hasn’t stopped the U.S. government from emphasizing the possibility that China could do it if it wanted to. The Chinese government is not shy about actually working with domestic companies, nor is it shy about keeping its critics in the business community in line.

FBI Director Chris Wray has warned that if China interferes with TikTok, users may not see “external signs.” “Something very sacred in our country — the distinction between the private sector and the public sector — does not exist in the way the Chinese Communist Party operates,” Wray said at a Senate hearing last year.

TikTok strongly denies the accusations. “Let me be clear: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” TikTok executive Shou Zi Chew told a separate hearing last year before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

To its credit, if China wanted to obtain information on U.S. users, Beijing could easily turn to data brokers who openly sell vast troves of user profiles around the world with little oversight.

With the U.S. providing no public evidence to support its serious claims, there is a significant disconnect between how politicians view TikTok and how most Americans view it. For many TikTok users, the U.S. crackdown is just another sign that politicians are out of touch with young people and don’t understand how they use the Internet. To them and others skeptical of the U.S. government’s claims, the situation looks like pure political posturing between two feuding countries, sometimes tinged with a hint of racism.

What will happen now?

The campaign to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. company originated from an executive order during the Trump administration. Trump’s threats to the company culminated in plans to force TikTok to sell its U.S. operations to Oracle in late 2020. Along the way, TikTok rejected an acquisition offer from Microsoft but was ultimately not sold to Oracle.

This executive action failed in 2021 after Biden took office. But last year, the Biden administration picked up the baton and worked with Congress to escalate pressure on the app. Now, the campaign appears to be back on track.

The new bill, which would effectively ban TikTok from being listed in the U.S. if not separated from Chinese ownership, has so far only passed a House committee vote. President Biden has expressed support for the bill, but it still needs a full vote in the House.

Even if the bill does pass the House this week (which is possible given lawmakers’ willingness to vote on it so quickly), the anti-TikTok bill faces an unknown fate in the Senate. We may learn more next week if senators start weighing the prospect of crafting their own version of the House bill. The Senate may not have the same interest in cracking down on TikTok this year, which would either stymie House efforts or kill them outright.

There is strong support from both parties in Congress for regulating TikTok, but the matter is still quite complicated. The most obvious complication: TikTok is incredibly popular, and we’re in an election year. TikTok has 170 million users in the United States, and they’re unlikely to watch quietly as Congress effectively bans their favorite source of entertainment and information.

“This legislation has one intended outcome: a total ban on TikTok in the United States,” TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek told TechCrunch in an emailed statement.

“The government is trying to take away the constitutional right to free speech from 170 million Americans,” Haurek said, signaling a possible public outcry. “This will harm millions of businesses, deprive artists of their audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”

TikTok’s cultural impact is so great that Biden is still using it for his campaign, despite the White House saying the app poses a national security threat.

Even if the bill passes the House and gets support in the Senate, the U.S. plan to force ByteDance to sell TikTok could still fail — an outcome that may or may not lead to a ban. China has previously stated that it opposes the forced sale of TikTok, which is fully within the scope of the Chinese government’s rights after updating export rules at the end of 2020.

TikTok itself will certainly mount a strong legal challenge to the forced sale, as the Trump administration did when it previously tried to accomplish the same thing through executive action. When Montana tried to enact its own ban at the state level, TikTok also sued, ultimately leading a federal judge to issue an injunction and block the effort.

In addition to Congress and the courts, TikTok maintains direct connections with large swaths of the American electorate and a base of creators with millions of loyal fans. These forces should not be underestimated in future battles.