The House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill today that could effectively ban TikTok in the United States. The contentious bill has bipartisan support in the House, but many American TikTok users and free speech and civil liberty organizations say the bill represents government overreach, violates Americans’ First Amendment rights, and is nothing more than censorship. Here’s what you need to know.
What is the bill about?
Officially called the “Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” and designated H.R.7521, the bill would make it illegal for a company to distribute, maintain, or update any app that is controlled by a foreign adversary.
“The bill prevents app store availability or web hosting services in the U.S. for ByteDance-controlled applications, including TikTok, unless the application severs ties to entities like ByteDance that are subject to the control of a foreign adversary,” the bill’s sponsors wrote in a press release announcing the bill.
In effect, the bill would make it illegal for Apple and Google to host TikTok on its app stores unless TikTok cuts ties with ByteDance and is acquired by new owners that the U.S. government doesn’t deem as a threat.
Additionally, the bill also gives the president the ability to designate other social media apps that are under the control of a foreign adversary as a threat to the United States and ban the apps from being hosted by app stores unless the owners divest from the control of a foreign adversary.
So would the bill actually “ban” TikTok?
If it passes the House and Senate and is signed into law by the president, it could. But first TikTok would have several months to divest itself from ByteDance by selling itself to a new owner or group of owners.
If TikTok did not do this, then the app would essentially be banned in America because the bill would make it illegal for Apple and Google to host the app in their U.S. app stores.
Why does the government want to ban TikTok?
This is such a loaded question and the answer depends upon who you ask.
Republican lawmakers, and increasingly Democratic ones, say they want to ban TikTok because it is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, and because ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.
U.S. lawmakers allege that TikTok funnels data about its users to the Chinese government and that the Chinese government can use the app to influence and sway public opinion in the United States.
What does TikTok say about the bill?
TikTok has been urging its American users to call their representatives in Congress to voice their opposition to the bill. In a statement, TikTok said, “This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”
Does Biden or Trump support the bill to ban TikTok?
President Biden has gone on record to say that should the House and then the Senate pass the bill, he will sign it. Interestingly, his own campaign recently joined the service in an effort to reach its younger user base.
Former president Donald Trump said he opposes the bill, although he supported a ban while he was president and even issued an executive order to do so in 2020, an effort that ultimately failed. Posting on his social media platform Truth Social in early March, Trump said “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business.”
What do other parties say of the bill?
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Fight for the Future are vehemently against the bill.
In a strongly worded letter to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy & Commerce, the organizations said, “H.R. 7521 is censorship—plain and simple. In a purported attempt to protect the data of U.S. residents from Chinese government acquisition, this legislation would forbid app stores and internet service providers from offering TikTok so long as the company remains under foreign ownership.
“Passing this legislation would trample on the constitutional right to freedom of speech of millions of people in the United States. TikTok is home to massive amounts of protected speech and association: it enables its users to discuss their opinions, share their hobbies, make art, and access news from down the street and around the world. Jeopardizing access to the platform jeopardizes access to free expression.”
Will TikTok be banned?
It’s much too soon to give a prediction on that. In order for TikTok to be banned in the United States, this bill would first have to pass a vote in the House of Representatives, which is happening today. Next, the bill would need to pass in the Senate, and then it would need to be signed by President Biden into law.
But if the bill does become law, TikTok would have several months to divest itself from ByteDance. If it did that, the app would still be able to be legally hosted on the Apple and Google app stores.
However, if TikTok did not divest itself from ByteDance, then the U.S. government could order Apple and Google to pull the app from its app stores, effectively banning TikTok in America.
Yet there is one other big caveat to this timeline: the courts.
Should the bill pass, it is a near certainty that TikTok would fight its constitutionality on First Amendment grounds using the courts. (Some technology legal experts, such as Tim Wu of Columbia Law School, have expressed doubt that a free-speech argument would hold up.) If the legality of the ban did end up in the courts, it could mean a long legal battle that could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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