Congress tries another attempt at passing TikTok ban

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The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday passed a new measure that makes a national ban on the social media app TikTok more likely in the coming weeks.

The measure requires TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest the service to a U.S.-based company under threat of a full-scope ban that would prohibit American tech companies from distributing it in their app stores. 

The premise of the ban is that the Chinese government utilizes TikTok as a way to gather information on Americans, something lawmakers flag as a security concern. Bytedance, which is based in China, has denied the allegations.

What happened over the weekend?

The measure passed on Saturday resembles a similar bill that was moved forward by House lawmakers just last month. Despite having broad bipartisan support among federal lawmakers and President Biden, the U.S. Senate has not acted on the earlier measure.

They may have to now, as lawmakers in the House rolled the TikTok ban into broader legislation that includes federal aid for the Ukrainian and Israeli militaries. By folding the TikTok ban into a broader foreign aid bill, House lawmakers are essentially pressuring their Senate counterparts to act on the measure, according to CNN. 

Lawmakers in the Senate could remove the TikTok ban from the bill, but doing so would require the amended measure to be sent back to the House for a vote — which would further delay assistance to the two militaries that are currently in the throes of prolonged wars. 

What would the TikTok ban require?

If both chambers of Congress pass the measure, and President Biden signs it into law — as he has said he will do — ByteDance would have about nine months to find a new U.S.-based owner for TikTok.

The Biden administration would be allowed to extend the shot clock by another 90 days if a sale doesn’t close in time, but there is proof that ByteDance is making progress on divesting the app.

By offloading TikTok to an American company, federal lawmakers believe the app would be privy to U.S. data collection, surveillance, and antitrust laws, which are more difficult to enforce on a service that is foreign-owned and operated.

If ByteDance does not move forward with a sale, the legislation would require U.S.-based technology providers to block the app from being downloaded in their stores. This would effectively require Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others to pull TikTok from their stores.

If the TikTok ban goes into effect, do users lose access to the app?

If no sale materializes, it isn’t clear whether TikTok users would lose access to the app.

It would be more difficult for users to download and install TikTok to their phones and tablets if they delete the app after the ban takes effect, since the app won’t be available in app stores or on U.S.-based servers. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean ByteDance will block those who already have the app installed from using it — and there are signs that the company will continue to support it, even if they don’t move forward with a sale.

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys is an award-winning freelance journalist who covers the intersection of media, technology and journalism. He is the publisher of TheDesk.net and a contributor to KnowTechie, StreamTV Insider (formerly Fierce Video) and Digital Content Next. Matthew is based in Northern California.