Congress has put TikTok in its crosshairs once more as part of a yearlong campaign to address the app's Chinese ownership, with U.S. lawmakers introducing a bipartisan bill on Tuesday that the company says amounts to an effective ban.
Republican and Democratic members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said their legislation would "incentivize divestment of TikTok" by otherwise excluding it from mobile app stores in the United States. It would also establish executive branch powers to similarly target social media companies controlled by a "foreign adversary."
"This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it," a TikTok spokesperson told Newsweek, arguing the legislation would violate First Amendment rights that guarantee freedom of expression.
Lawmakers have regarded TikTok with suspicion for well over a year, with concerns largely stemming from the app's Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance. In late 2022, the developer, which also makes the Chinese version known as Douyin, said it dismissed four employees, including two based in China, after they accessed the data of U.S. TikTok users while investigating an internal leak.
Additional scrutiny came over China's domestic state security laws, which cybersecurity experts said could make ByteDance—and conceivably TikTok by extension—beholden to Communist Party authorities should they request to review any overseas data.
Suspected but ultimately unfounded links to China's long-ruling party culminated in Senator Tom Cotton's (R-AR) repeated questioning of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean national, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January.
Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the China committee's chair and ranking member, said ByteDance would be given "a window of time to divest," and that TikTok would not be excluded "if it completes a qualified divestment."
The bill wouldn't punish individual social media users or regulate content, they said.
"This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users," Gallagher said. "America's foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States. TikTok's time in the United States is over unless it ends its relationship with CCP-controlled ByteDance."
Krishnamoorthi added: "So long as it is owned by ByteDance and thus required to collaborate with the CCP, TikTok poses critical threats to our national security."
"Our bipartisan legislation would protect American social media users by driving the divestment of foreign adversary-controlled apps to ensure that Americans are protected from the digital surveillance and influence operations of regimes that could weaponize their personal data against them," he said.
Brendan Carr, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, said in a statement supporting the bill: "Supreme Court precedent makes clear that Congress can ban TikTok or require it to cut ties with the CCP without violating the First Amendment."
"Specifically, the Court draws a distinction between laws based on the content of speech on the one hand and those based on conduct on the other. Laws that fall into the first category almost always violate the First Amendment. But those that fall into the second category by regulating non-expressive conduct do not," Carr said.
In the past year, senior figures in the U.S. intelligence community, among them FBI Director Christopher Wray, have echoed general concerns about ByteDance's operations and the security of American user data, even as President Joe Biden leverages the app to reach younger voters.
Biden's reelection campaign joined the platform last month.
The White House didn't immediately return Newsweek's request for comment, but a spokesperson told the Financial Times that the bill was a "welcome step," and that it would work with Congress "strengthening this legislation to put it on the strongest possible legal footing."
"The president additionally urges Congress to do its part and pass comprehensive bipartisan privacy legislation, especially to protect the safety of our children," its statement said.
The legislation already has support from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Its chair, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), said members would vote on the bill this Thursday.
"Data brokers collect a stunning amount of sensitive information and data on Americans—from their physical and mental health, to when and where they're traveling. Once collected, this sensitive information can be sold to anyone, including foreign adversaries like China," she said.
One year ago this month, TikTok said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the interagency panel that screens inbound investments, requested that ByteDance sell its stake in the app.
The Chinese government, which previously accused the U.S. of violating market norms with its demand, has hinted that it would not allow ByteDance to cut ties with the country's most successful tech export, which is used by 170 million Americans and 5 million small businesses, according to TikTok.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
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