The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill that will ban TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese owner divests from the company — making final passage into law “inevitable,” insiders say.
The ban was tied to the vote on a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and has gotten comparatively little attention.
The TikTok bill passed by a vote of 360 to 58. The full aid bill has yet to be voted on, but is expected to pass
Roughly 150 million Americans are on TikTok and there have been growing fears among lawmakers about what influence its Chinese Communist owners have on the company.
In recent months TikTok has made headlines for promoting Osama Bin Laden and urging young users to choke each other.
After Hamas’ terrorist massacre in Israel, the company has faced accusations of promoting Hamas propaganda and turning younger Americans toward Islamic terrorism.
“The forced sale of TikTok represents a bipartisan breakthrough against the CCP’s most powerful tool of information warfare against the United States,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) told The Post. “No longer will Congress stand by idly while the CCP freely weaponizes TikTok to corrupt the minds of young Americans, radicalize Americans against their own country, and amplify antisemitism on a scale and at a pace not seen in human history.”
Wall Street has been buzzing about who might purchase TikTok in the event of a forced divestment from its Chinese owner ByteDance. Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Oracle have all been floated as possible suitors. Rumble, a scrappy free speech-oriented competitor to YouTube has also been talked about as a possible buyer.
One obstacle is the sheer scale of the purchase. The social media company has been valued in the past as worth up to $50 billion.
In March the House passed a similar TikTok bill, which moved through the chamber in a broad bipartisan majority. That effort, however, has been stalled in the Democratic Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has so far refused to bring the measure of up for a vote. The Senate leader said he would get to the matter eventually.
Schumer has in the past vigorously supported efforts to curtail the influence of TikTok.
“A US company should buy TikTok so everyone can keep using it and your data is safe,” he wrote in an X post from 2020. “This is about privacy. With TikTok in China, it’s subject to Chinese Communist Party laws that may require handing over data to their government. A safe way must be found for TikTok to continue.”
With the TikTok ban now buried in the foreign aide package — widely considered urgent, must-pass legislation — the Senate will likely have no choice but to take up the measure. Senate leaders have promised to move the measure swiftly and get it to President Biden for his signature.
“The Ban was inevitable. It was just how we would get there that was up for debate,” said one Senate insider. “TikTok did a horrible job fighting for its corporate life.”
The new TikTok ban will allow the company nine months (extendable to a year by the president) to divest or face a nation-wide ban — meaning its full consequences won’t come into force until after the 2024 presidential election.
The House’s previous TikTok legislation would have only allowed a six month window. Democrats in particular rely on TikTok to mobilize younger voters to the polls.
