© Getty ImagesProtestors hold signs in support of TikTok outside the U.S. Capitol Building on March 13, 2024 in Washington, DC.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act passed the House, 352-65, easily overcoming the two-thirds requirement.
The bill now heads to the Senate and an uncertain future — with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) non-committal Wednesday about when or whether he will bring the legislation up for a vote
"The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House," the Brooklyn Democrat said in a brief statement.
However, President Biden, who signed a law in December 2022 prohibiting TikTok on government devices except for certain law enforcement-related reasons, has indicated he will approve the bill if it passes Congress and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that "we hope the Senate takes action, and takes this up very quickly."
If the bill does become law, ByteDance would be required to spin off TikTok within 180 days.
If that does not happen, companies like Google and Apple will be restricted from offering US-based web hosting or making TikTok available in their app stores.
Additionally, the bill authorizes the Biden administration to prohibit apps linked to four adversary nations: China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.
To ban those apps, government agencies must agree on the threat and must make evidence available to Congress.
© House TV via REUTERSThe House passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act by a vote of 352-65.
"The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression," TikTok said in a statement last week.
"This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country."
China's foreign ministry also argued against the bill, with spokesman Wang Wenbin claiming Wednesday: "In recent years, though the US has never found any evidence of TikTok posing a threat to the US's national security, it has never stopped going after TikTok.
"Such practice of resorting to hegemonic moves when one could not succeed in fair competition disrupts the normal operation of businesses, undermines the confidence of international investors in the investment environment, sabotages the normal economic and trade order in the world and will eventually backfire on the US itself," Wang added.
Critics of Beijing like Sean King, senior vice president at Park Strategists political consulting firm, told The Post that the attacks were "a little rich considering the People's Republic of China itself outright bans Facebook, Twitter and heavily censors its own Internet providers."
The measure also got a bipartisan boost Wednesday from the top two lawmakers on the Senate intelligence committee.
"We are united in our concern about the national security threat posed by TikTok — a platform with enormous power to influence and divide Americans whose parent company ByteDance remains legally required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party," Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a joint statement.
President Biden said he would sign the bill into law if it passes the Senate.
"We were encouraged by today's strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives," Warner and Rubio added, "and look forward to working together to get this bill passed through the Senate and signed into law."
The measure was proposed by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the top Republican and Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. The pair cited Beijing's laws which stipulate that "all organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts."
In particular, national security experts are concerned about China gaining access to TikTok user browsing history, biometric identifiers, location data and more.
© Alex Wong/Getty ImagesRep. Mike Gallagher speaking to the press after a classified briefing on TikTok on March 12, 2024. Photo by
"That's exactly what TikTok can be used for because millions of Americans are addicted to it," he added. "China can absolutely manipulate those algorithms."
"Today we're sending a message to the CCP that we are going to deflate the 140 million spy balloons that they have installed on American phones," crowed Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) from the House floor.
In his floor remarks, Krishnamoorthi emphasized that the legislation was not meant to be a ban on the app.
"Our intention is for TikTok to continue to operate," he said, "but not under the control of the Chinese Communist Party."
Earlier this year, TikTok CEO Shou Chew committed to a $1.5 billion investment in so-called "Project Texas," intended to push American data into servers run by Oracle.
"We have not been asked for any data by the Chinese government and we have never provided it," Chew stressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But lawmakers and national security experts were unconvinced.
Donald Trump reversed course and opposed the bill against TikTok. Many House Republicans broke with him on that.
The bill was opposed by a rare coalition of far-left and far-right lawmakers, some of whom cited free speech concerns, while others seemed to take their cues from former President Donald Trump — who attempted to ban TikTok in 2020, but opposed the current bill out after meeting with billionaire GOP donor and TikTok stakeholder Jeff Yass.
"Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people," Trump told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday.
"There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it."
Among those voting "nay" Wednesday were far-left Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). Those opposing the bill from the right included Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
© Jeff Faughender/Courier Journal and USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORKRand Paul has been gearing up to try to kill the TikTok bill in the Senate.
"The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse. The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps. The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the 'foreign adversary,'" Massie posted on X Tuesday.
"I am a NO on the TikTok bill we are about to vote on. I believe the bill does set TikTok up to be banned, there are first amendment [sic] issues I see with taking away a platform that over 170 million American's [sic] use, and this won't fix the serious issues we have with data privacy," another "no" vote, 27-year-old Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), posted on X.
Frost also publicly suggested that the bill forcing ByteDance to divest from TikTok could alienate younger voters and pose complications for Democrats in the 2024 election.
Tech guru Elon Musk, who owns X, also opposed the measure.
"This law is not just about TikTok, it is about censorship and government control! If it were just about TikTok, it would only cite 'foreign control' as the issue, but it does not," he said.
Ultimately, 50 Democrats opposed the bill along with 15 Republicans. One Democrat, Jasmine Crockett of Texas, voted "present."
Fourteen lawmakers, seven Democrats and seven Republicans, did not vote.
Comment: Others perceive different, but not necessarily conflicting motivations for banning the platform:
"We really have a TikTok problem."