The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday is expected to vote on legislation giving China’s ByteDance six months to divest from short video app TikTok or face a U.S. ban.
Committee approval would set up a vote by U.S. House of Representatives that represents the first significant momentum for a U.S. crackdown on TikTok, which about 170 million U.S. users.
Representative Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the House select China committee, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the panel’s top Democrat, on Tuesday introduced legislation to address national security concerns posed by Chinese ownership of the app.
“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” a company spokesperson said. “This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday praised the proposal, saying the administration wants “to see this bill get done so it can get to the president’s desk” saying it supports addressing “the threat posed by certain technology services operating in the United States.”
The app is popular and getting legislation approved in an election year may be difficult. Last month, Democratic President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok.
