OAN’s James Meyers
9:35 AM -Wednesday, March 13, 2024
The House voted to pass legislation on Wednesday that could ban the social media giant TikTok in the United States. Republicans and Democrats have continued to raise concerns that the app is a national security threat.
After a 352-65 vote in the House, the bill will now head to the Senate, where experts are not sure if it will be passed or not.
“Communist China is America’s largest geopolitical foe and is using technology to actively undermine America’s economy and security,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), said in a statement after the vote, warning that TikTok could be used to access American data and spread “harmful” information.
The law would remove TikTok from app stores in the U.S. if ByteDance, a China-based parent company that owns Tiktok, does not sell its stake in the application in the next six months.
ByteDance has recently been lobbying to kill the legislation, arguing that the bill would violate Americans First Amendment rights of its 170 million U.S. users. They also claim that the app’s removal would harm thousands of small businesses that rely on TikTok.
Meanwhile, with the bill passing it now puts pressure on a Democrat-led Senate to act. Recently, President Joe Biden has claimed if the bill reached his desk that he would sign it into law.
Additionally, Donald Trump has been outspoken against the bill, saying a national TikTok ban would only help grow Facebook, which he called the “enemy of the people.”
The new law would also apply to media companies operating in the United States in which China, Iran, Russia and North Korea have at least a 20% stake.
Lawmakers and intelligence officials have worried the Chinese government could use TikTok to access personal data from users and use algorithms to show them videos that could influence their views, which includes the incoming presidential election.
TikTok has responded to the bill by sending users pop-ups on the app to tell them to call their local politicians and push notifications saying, “Help stop the TikTok shutdown.”
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