The U.S. Senate has voted to approve a bill that would ban TikTok nationwide unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells its stake in the popular app. The development is likely to result in a court battle between the U.S. and TikTok, which argues that the legislation violates the First Amendment.
President Biden, a supporter of the TikTok divest-or-ban measure, has said he will sign the bill into law. U.S. lawmakers have expressed deep concern about TikTok’s Chinese ownership, suggesting that the Chinese communist regime could use the app to spy on Americans or promulgate pro-China propaganda.
The Senate approval of the TikTok ban bill was tied to a $95 billion package of foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The Senate, by a 79-18 vote, approved the bundled legislation after the House passed the resolutions Saturday.
TikTok plans to file a legal challenge once the bill is signed into law, with Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, calling the legislation a “clear violation” of the First Amendment in a memo to company staff.
Under the “Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” bill, Apple and Google’s app stores and web hosting services in the U.S. would be barred from hosting any “foreign adversary controlled application” unless ByteDance divests its ownership in TikTok within nine months of the bill becoming law, with an additional 90-day extension possible at the president’s discretion.
Backers of the TikTok bill argue that it doesn’t restrict free speech, saying it only requires apps to be owned by a company that isn’t subject to the control of an adversarial foreign government. They point to the 2020 sale of dating app Grindr by Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. to a group of U.S.-based investors as a precedent.
