‘This bill is a choice. It’s a choice for ByteDance as well as any other social media app controlled by a foreign adversary.’
WASHINGTON—Lawmakers are defending a proposed bill that would effectively force the sale of TikTok to a non-Chinese company as a choice between the United States and China’s ruling communist regime.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act would require Chinese company ByteDance to divest from TikTok or else face a ban in the United States.
Members of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who sponsored the bill said during a March 6 press conference that the legislation was designed to counter the threat posed to the United States by applications controlled or influenced by adversarial nations.
“We’ve listened to warnings from every major national security official in the Biden administration,” Select Committee Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) said.
“This has been a very constructive conversation on a complicated issue. So we have now come together, we have 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, to introduce a bill that would prohibit TikTok from operating in the United States unless it severs its ties to ByteDance or any other entity controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Leadership from the bipartisan select committee introduced the legislation on March 5, following up on failed efforts in the Senate last year that sought to ban TikTok.
The new bill allows the United States to demand the divestment of major social media companies owned by China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
Should such companies fail to comply with the demand, the law would allow those applications to be prohibited from appearing in app stores such as those owned by Apple and Google, essentially banning the apps unless they acquiesce to a forced sale.
Though TikTok and ByteDance are explicitly named in the bill, Mr. Gallagher said that the legislation was aimed primarily at creating a framework to end the malign influence of adversarial powers.
“I think it’s fair to say that this is about that ownership structure in that framework, not about going after a particular company,” Mr. Gallagher said.
“There is a path forward for TikTok, as outlined in our bipartisan bill. If TikTok is completely divested by CCP-controlled ByteDance, if there is a separation, the app can remain in the United States.”It’s unclear what chance the bill has of passing the House and then the Senate, where legislators may be reluctant to be at loggerheads with one of the world’s largest social media giants.
TikTok heavily lobbied against congressional efforts to ban it last year and has framed this newest legislation as an assault on the free speech of the 170 million Americans who use the app.
“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” a spokesperson for TikTok told The Epoch Times.
“This legislation will 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.”
Some influential groups in Washington are already echoing that language.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a full-throated defense for TikTok, saying that the act would interfere with Americans’ First Amendment right to self-expression.
“We’re deeply disappointed that our leaders are once again attempting to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year,” ACLU senior counsel Jenna Leventoff said in a prepared statement.
“Just because the bill sponsors claim that banning TikTok isn’t about suppressing speech, there’s no denying that it would do just that.”
Select Committee Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) said the bill wasn’t a ban on any single application, nor an affront to free speech.
Instead, he presented the legislation as a choice between the well-being of the American people and the advancement of the CCP.
“This bill is not a ban, and it’s really not about TikTok,” Mr. Krishnamoorthi said. “This bill is a choice. And it’s a choice for ByteDance as well as any other social media app controlled by a foreign adversary.”
To that end, the bill would grant the president the ability to demand any social media app with more than 1 million users and a greater than 20 percent ownership by a covered nation such as China to be divested of that interest and sold to a new company.
That measure would effectively ban not only ByteDance, but all current and future major social media companies owned or operated by China.
Such authority may raise concerns about anti-competitive practices that could be used to effectively insulate U.S. tech corporations from foreign competition, particularly given the Biden administration’s admission that U.S. corporations are currently allowed to sell Americans’ data to data brokers who then sell that same information directly to China.
On this point, the legislators fluctuated between asserting that the bill wasn’t about banning TikTok per se and insisting that TikTok was the core reason for the bill’s existence.
“It’s become clear from the classified briefings we’ve had, including witness testimonies, that TikTok presents a clear and present danger to our national security and to all American users on this app,” Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) said.
“When it comes to media apps like TikTok, we are failing our children and we are failing our country,” Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) added.
“It’s critical that Congress take action to address the national security threat posed by TikTok.”
The Epoch Times requested additional comment from ByteDance and TikTok but received none by press time.