Congress Introduces Bill to Potentially Ban TikTok in the US

TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has become one of the biggest social media apps in the world, with over 2B users worldwide as of 2024. The app, which is dedicated to short-form videos, began as a simple source of entertainment and comedy and has evolved into a diverse platform hosting a wide range of content, including informative videos spanning various topics.

Whether sharing information on beauty, fashion, or even personal finance, the increasing number of influencers and content creators on the platform have made TikTok quite a moneymaker, not only through monetization, otherwise known as TikTok’s Creator Fund, but also through creators actually using the platform to promote and sell their products.

With the significant role TikTok plays in entertainment and the well-being of especially the younger generation, it’s not surprising that over 170M Americans have used TikTok over the years. The platform may face trouble, however, as the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led by Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash, has passed a bipartisan bill that could potentially ban TikTok from US users in the next few months.

Trouble With TikTok

This bill isn’t exactly TikTok’s first rodeo against US Congress. The Trump administration once attempted to ban TikTok in 2020 to no avail. Early last year, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew had to go through a five-hour congressional hearing as the Biden administration grew concerned about Chinese authorities accessing American data. Chew repeatedly insisted that TikTok’s corporate structure does not make the company beholden to the Chinese government, with them having no way of “forcing” information about US users out of the company.

Chew stated that TikTok will always continue to run safeguards to ensure strict privacy and security practices, making unauthorized foreign access unattainable and of impossibility. With ByteDance not being an agent of China or any other country, Chew argued that TikTok would never comply if the Chinese government were to request access. Chew claims that the company has never received such a request either.

With TikTok still up and running in the US, it is plain as day that Congress’s previous efforts were met with failure. Last Thursday, however, the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced legislation titled the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which makes the distribution of software tied to US adversaries within the country illegal.

The Future of App Freedom

The bill, which explicitly calls out TikTok, states that enabling and performing the act of distributing, maintaining, and updating foreign adversary-controlled applications would be unlawful. If the bill passes and becomes law through Biden’s approval and signature, ByteDance would be forced to sell TikTok within the next six months. If the company doesn’t comply, a nationwide ban on the app will be applied, meaning TikTok cannot be legally distributed in apps like Apple Store and Google Play in the US.

TikTok has responded to Congress’s bill by releasing a mass in-app message to US users over the age of 18 in an attempt to stop TikTok’s shutdown. TikTok believes that a ban will “damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience,” and that users can speak up to prevent the US government from stripping away “170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”

With legislation such as this, some against the ban dread the fate and future of other foreign adversary apps like TikTok. Big TikTok star/journalist Vitus Spehar, known as UnderTheDeskNews, believes that if legislation such as this passes, the government essentially has the superpower to ban any app they deem unsafe.

Some view this constant effort to ban TikTok as ironic, as the person in power—Biden himself—utilizes TikTok for campaign purposes in this election year despite the government viewing the app as a national security threat.

Source: US Congress

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