Bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok clears House panel unanimously

Bipartisan legislation that would force Chinese government-linked ByteDance to sell off TikTok cleared a House committee vote unanimously on Thursday — with lawmakers defying an all-out pressure campaign by the app and disgruntled users to kill the bill.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act by a 50-0 vote during a markup session.

The bill would bar companies like Apple or Google from offering TikTok on their app stores or providing the social platform with web hosting services in the US unless ByteDance divests itself with 180 days.

The measure also vests the executive branch with the authority to ban other apps owned by foreign adversaries if the platforms are deemed to pose a threat to national security — but agencies must be in agreement and the information must be presented to Congress and the American public.

The bill only defines China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as foreign adversaries, per existing federal law.

More than 100 million Americans use TikTok, many of whom are younger than 30 years old, and reports of the Chinese government stealing data of the app’s users have raised concerns among lawmakers in Washington.

“Earlier today, we heard from members of the intelligence community about the dangers posed by applications, like TikTok, that are controlled by foreign adversaries and who are determined to exploit and weaponize Americans’ data,” panel Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said before the hearing.

“We also witnessed firsthand, in real time, how the Chinese Communist Party can weaponize platforms like TikTok to manipulate the American people,” she added. “This morning, prior to our hearing, TikTok used its influence and power to force users to contact their representatives if they wanted to continue using TikTok.

“This is just a small taste of how the CCP weaponizes applications it controls to manipulate tens of millions of people to further its agenda.”

In a Tuesday statement, TikTok called the bill “an outright ban” and said it would “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.”

The app later pressured its US users to lobby their member of Congress in opposition, with one unidentified caller threatening to kill themself if it was passed, according to Politico.

House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who co-sponsored the bill, denied the allegations, saying that the proposal did not authorize enforcement actions against users, nor did it regulate Americans’ speech.

After it passed, both urged a swift full House vote on the 12-page bill.

“As long as TikTok is owned by Chinese Communist Party-controlled ByteDance, TikTok poses a grave threat to US national security,” Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi said in a joint statement.

Former President Donald Trump’s Commerce Department tried to boot TikTok from US app stores in September 2020, but President Biden signed an executive order during his first year in office reversing the move.

Still, the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) warned the Biden administration that China could obtain US citizens’ browsing history, location and other biometric identifiers through the app.

The House bill further undercuts attempts by social media platforms to get that information by forcing apps to hand over user data upon request.

During his grilling before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, TikTok CEO Shou Chew extended an olive branch by pledging a $1.5 billion investment in an initiative called “Project Texas,” which would shift US users’ data to servers maintained by the domestic tech giant Oracle.

But Gallagher and other lawmakers remained unconvinced the app was serious about safeguarding Americans.

The Wisconsin Republican, in a prior hearing, called on Congress to set “the rules of the road” for TikTok and other apps owned by adversarial governments, given the immense strides China and its military, the People’s Liberation Army, had already made in weaponizing personal data.

“We’ve already seen how China is going to use advanced biotechnology for things like forced DNA collection, genetic surveillance, the genetic enhancement of soldiers for the PLA, genetically tailored weapons are already a trending topic in PLA military circles,” he said at the time.

Biden signed a law in 2022 banning the use of TikTok on government devices, which applied to roughly 4 million federal employees, and later signaled support for a Senate bill that mirrored the Trump-era Commerce Department ban on TikTok.

That bill never cleared a Senate committee, and the president later joined the app to appeal to young voters amid his 2024 re-election campaign, gaining 5 million views with his opening post during the Super Bowl.

Robert O’Brien, who served as Trump’s national security adviser, testified to the Energy and Commerce panel that the CCP intended “to control the platform that America’s youth overwhelmingly relies on for news.”

“To do so would be akin to allowing Soviet control of several major American newspapers and TV channels during the Cold War,” O’Brien said. “Congress must pass this bill and finish the job the Trump Administration started in 2020: force a sale of TikTok to remove it from CCP control, or prohibit its operation in the United States.”