House committee unanimously approves bill to ban TikTok

Washington
CNN
—

A powerful House committee advanced a bill Thursday that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok on all electronic devices, renewing lawmakers’ objections to one of the world’s most popular social media apps. and highlighted unresolved concerns that TikTok could pose a risk of Chinese government espionage. .

The bill, which passed unanimously in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would ban TikTok from the U.S. unless the social media platform used by about 170 million Americans quickly separates from its Chinese-affiliated parent company ByteDance. will be banned from the app store.

If the bill becomes law, ByteDance would have 165 days, or just over five months, to sell TikTok. If it’s not sold by that date, it will be illegal for app store operators like Apple and Google to make it available for download. The bill contemplates similar bans on other apps “controlled by foreign adversaries.”

It’s the most aggressive bill targeting TikTok since CEO Hsu Chu testified to lawmakers last year that the app posed no threat to Americans. , which will be submitted by a parliamentary committee.

“Today, we enact long-overdue legislation to protect Americans from the threats posed by adversary-controlled apps and send a very strong message that America will always stand up for our values ​​and freedoms. “We are taking the first steps toward this goal,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., the committee’s chair.

The New Jersey congressman, a ranking Democrat, compared the bill to previous efforts to regulate the U.S. airwaves, citing testimony from national security officials in a closed-door hearing early Thursday.

“We take very seriously the concerns raised by the intelligence community this morning,” Pallone said. “They are asking Congress to give them more authority to act in these narrowly defined situations, and they believe this bill will do that.”

The bill was introduced with bipartisan support earlier this week by Rep. Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin, who chairs the House Select Committee on China. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthy, Democrat of Illinois, is a ranking member of that committee. The bill also has support from the White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Now that the TikTok bill has passed out of committee, it will head to a floor vote next week, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said. Post to X Thursday evening. The bill’s fate in the Senate is less clear, as there is no companion bill in the Senate and Washington state Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Democratic chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, has not committed to moving forward with the proposal. .

“I intend to sit down with my colleagues in the Senate and House to find a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties,” Cantwell said in a statement to CNN.

In the same session Thursday, House members unanimously voted to advance a second bill that would limit the ability of U.S. companies to sell Americans’ personal information to foreign adversaries.

U.S. officials have cited the widespread commercial availability of U.S. citizens’ data as another source of national security risk. The US government and other domestic law enforcement agencies are also known to purchase data on US citizens from commercial data brokers.

TikTok has stepped up its campaign against the bill, including mobilizing its user base.

The company showed some users a full-screen pop-up in the app warning that the bill would “strip 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression.”

“This will harm millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists audiences,” the notice reads, a copy of which was seen by CNN. It was done.

The call to action ends with a link encouraging users to call their legislators to voice their opposition to the bill. Several congressional staffers told CNN on Thursday that House offices are inundated with calls during the election period, sometimes in the hundreds.

Many of the calls appear to be from teenagers and older adults, some of whom are “confused” as to why they are calling and why TikTok is at risk. one Republican aide told CNN.

Speaking to reporters on the steps of the Capitol on Thursday, Gallagher refused to characterize the bill as banning TikTok.

“It’s not prohibited,” he said. “This puts the choice of whether or not to sever ties with the Chinese Communist Party squarely in TikTok’s hands. As long as ByteDance no longer owns the company, TikTok can continue to exist. You can keep doing all the stupid dance videos you want and communicate with your friends. But the basic ownership structure has to change.”

in Post to XTikTok rejected lawmakers’ claims about the bill that would provide options to TikTok.

“This bill has a predetermined outcome: a complete ban on TikTok in the United States,” the company wrote. “The government is trying to strip 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression. will destroy the lives of its creators.”

In Congress on Thursday, Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw dismissed criticism that lawmakers don’t understand the technology they’re trying to regulate.

“It’s not because we’re old and grumpy and don’t understand TikTok. It’s not because we’re old and grumpy and don’t understand TikTok. Because we haven’t,” Crenshaw said. “I’ve been on social media long before Gen Z is obsessed with TikTok. I get it.”

In addition to potentially banning app stores from hosting TikTok, the bill could also limit the distribution of TikTok’s traffic and content. “Internet Hosting Services”. It’s a broad term that encompasses a variety of industries, including “file hosting, domain name server hosting, cloud hosting, and virtual private server hosting.”

This language could mean more parts of the economy would be affected by the bill, not just TikTok, Apple, and Google.

U.S. officials have long warned that China’s intelligence law could allow the Chinese government to snoop on user information collected by TikTok and force ByteDance to hand over the data.

Policymakers believe that the Chinese government could use personal information to identify information targets and facilitate large-scale disinformation campaigns that could disrupt elections or cause other disruptions. I am concerned.

So far, the U.S. government has not publicly presented any evidence that the Chinese government has accessed TikTok user data, and cybersecurity experts say that, while a serious concern, it remains hypothetical. There is.

It also says governments can already buy vast amounts of personal data from data brokers and easily hack individual cellphones using commercial spyware.

State and federal legislatures have already banned TikTok from government-owned devices, but attempts to extend the restrictions to Americans’ personal devices have repeatedly stalled.

Last year, senators proposed a bill to crack down on TikTok, raising concerns that it could give too much power to the executive branch.

Efforts to ban TikTok date back to the Trump administration, which used a series of executive orders to force app stores to remove TikTok and tried to force ByteDance to spin off the company. Those efforts also stalled amid legal issues, which forced TikTok to negotiate with the U.S. government over how to protect Americans’ personal data. The negotiations continue even as TikTok moves to store U.S. user data on U.S.-based servers controlled by tech giant Oracle.

In Montana, a federal judge last year temporarily blocked a statewide ban on TikTok, saying the bill was too broad and threatened the First Amendment rights of Montana users to access information through the app. insisted.

A legislative fact sheet by the House bill’s sponsors asserts that the proposal would not censor speech.

“The focus is entirely on controlling foreign adversaries, not the content of shared speech,” the fact sheet says.

However, the overall impact of the bill would still impact Americans’ free speech rights, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

“We are extremely disappointed that our nation’s leaders are once again attempting to trade First Amendment rights for cheap political points in an election year,” said Jenna Leventov, senior policy advisor at the ACLU. ” “Just because the bill’s sponsors claim that banning TikTok is not suppression of speech, there’s no denying that’s exactly what it does. We urge lawmakers to oppose this unconstitutional bill. I urge you to cast your vote.”

The bill would also threaten the free speech rights of tech giants Apple and Google, major industry groups representing the companies said.

“The government may not tell private entities, including digital services companies, what speech they will publish. The First Amendment prohibits that,” said the Computer and Communications Industry Association’s senior vice president. Stephanie Joyce said. “A law that protects Americans from applications controlled by foreign adversaries would violate the First Amendment right of private companies, including app stores, to selectively display content they deem appropriate for their communities. Become.”

CNN’s Hayley Talbot and Melanie Zanona contributed to this report.