House votes in favor of bill that could ban TikTok, sending it onward to Senate

The US Home of Representatives handed a invoice on Saturday that would both see TikTok banned within the nation or power its sale. A revised model of the invoice, which beforehand handed the Home in March however later stalled in Senate, was roped in with a international help package deal this time round, probably that means it’s going to now be treated as a higher priority merchandise. The invoice initially gave TikTok’s Chinese language mother or father firm, ByteDance, six months to promote the app if it’s handed into regulation or TikTok can be banned from US app shops. Below the revised model, ByteDance would have as much as a 12 months to divest.

The invoice handed with a vote of 360-58 within the Home, in keeping with AP. It’ll now transfer on to the Senate, which may vote on it in only a matter of days. Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer said today that the Senate is working to achieve an settlement on when the subsequent vote will likely be for the international help package deal that the TikTok invoice is connected to, however it’s anticipated to occur this coming Tuesday. President Joe Biden has previously said he would support the bill if Congress passes it.

The invoice paints TikTok as a nationwide safety risk as a result of its ties to China. There are roughly 170 million US customers on the app, a minimum of in keeping with TikTok, and ByteDance is not anticipated to allow them to go with out a battle. In a press release posted on X earlier this week, the TikTok Coverage account stated such a regulation would “trample the free speech rights” of those customers, “devastate 7 million companies, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economic system, yearly.” Critics of the invoice have additionally argued that banning TikTok would do little in the way in which of really defending Individuals’ information.