Will the US Implement a TikTok Ban After House Approval of the Bill?

The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that requires ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, to either sell the social media site or face a complete TikTok ban in the US.

The bill is now on its way to the Senate, where its chances of being passed still need to be mined. However, the fact that 352 House members voted in favor and only 65 voted again shows the seriousness and profound existential danger TikTok faces in the US.

The bill, the possibility of a TikTok ban, and what it means for the 170 million US users of TikTok are broken down below.

The bill passed by the House on Wednesday is the latest development in a political battle over TikTok, which has become very famous since its launch in 2017. 2018, the app had more downloads than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube combined. From July 2020 to July 2022, monthly active users rose by 45%.

Concerns about TikTok’s fast growth grew among lawmakers. They thought the app’s Chinese parent company might collect private user data and block material against the Chinese government’s wishes.

Even though TikTok said it wouldn’t or hadn’t shared US user data with the Chinese government, lawmakers’ worries grew after reports showed that ByteDance workers in China had accessed data about US TikTok users that hadn’t been made public.

TikTok says it doesn’t keep data about US users in China, but in Singapore and the US, using cloud infrastructure run by the American company Oracle. TikTok also set up a data center in Ireland in 2023 to handle data from people in the EU.

Even with these steps, many US politicians still need to be happier. In March 2023, Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, went before Congress and was questioned in detail for more than five hours about these and other issues. Lawmakers asked Chew about his citizenship because they thought he had ties to China, even though he is Singaporean.

In Congress over the past year, different bills have been introduced and passed to regulate TikTok ban and how it handles US user data. On Wednesday, the bill that was passed became law.

Does this bill ban TikTok?

ByteDance would have 165 days to sell TikTok to a company not based in China under the new bill. If it didn’t, it would be against the law for app shops like the Apple App Store and Google Play to host TikTok or provide web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled apps.

People who wrote the bill say it’s not a ban because it lets ByteDance sell TikTok and keep the app from being banned in the US.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the House Special China committee, said, “TikTok could live on, and people could do whatever they want on it as long as there is that separation.” Think of this as an operation to remove the tumor and save the patient at the same time. It’s not a ban.

That’s not what TikTok has said. They say it needs to be clarified if they would agree to a sale or event that could happen within six months.

“This bill is designed to have one result: to completely TikTok ban in the United States,” the company said after the vote. “The government is trying to take away the constitutional right to free speech of 170 million Americans.” This will hurt millions of companies, keep artists from getting an audience, and make it impossible for many creators nationwide to make a living.

What led us to this point?

TikTok has been banned or almost banned several times in recent years. The first TikTok ban attempt was made by Donald Trump in 2020 through an executive order, but it was eventually stopped by courts citing the First Amendment. Since then, Trump has changed his mind and is now against banning TikTok. On the other hand, Biden said that he would sign the bill if it got to him.

In 2023, Montana tried to ban the app across the state, but a federal judge threw out the rule because it violated the First Amendment. In the US, the app was taken off of government-issued phones in 2022. As of 2023, at least 34 states had also taken TikTok off government phones. It is not allowed in at least 50 universities in the US, including those that own computers and offer Wi-Fi.

Reuters reported that in March 2024, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which the Treasury runs, told ByteDance to sell its shares in TikTok or the app could be banned. So far, more needs to be done.

In 2020, India stopped TikTok because of a wave of dangerous “challenges” that killed some users. The ban changed the competition in India in a big way, giving a lot of market share to YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, which are direct rivals of TikTok. People in China, where Douyin is popular and a different app from parent company ByteDance with stricter rules, need help getting the app.

How could a TikTok ban be put into place?

Because the internet is not controlled, it would be hard to enforce a TikTok ban. The House passed a bill to punish app stores daily for letting people download TikTok. However, it would take a lot of work to stop people with the app from using it.

ISPs might also block IP addresses connected to TikTok. Still, it is easy to get around on computer browsers using a VPN or virtual private network, which sends computer connections to different places.

The US government would have to use the same strategies that countries like Iran and China use to block access to TikTok entirely. These countries set up their internet to make content bans easier to enforce.

Who supports the idea of banning TikTok?

Even though Trump changed his mind about the possible ban, most Republican lawmakers still back it. Trump started the war on TikTok in 2020. The Biden administration has also supported the bill. Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, said that the government wants “to see this bill get done so it can get to the president’s desk.” It was last month that Biden’s team joined TikTok.

Many Republicans are still working to ban TikTok or force it to sell to an American company, even though Trump is against the plan.

“He’s not right, then. “He also had his executive orders and actions that he was taking, but now he’s changed his mind about that,” said Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas and member of the far-right Freedom Caucus. Yes, this is the third time in a row that I disagree with the past president. The problem with TikTok is simple.

Who opposed the plan of action for TikTok?

TikTok has spoken against the bill and asked the Senate not to pass it. After the vote on Wednesday, Alex Haurek, a spokesperson for TikTok, said, “We hope that the Senate will look at the facts, listen to their constituents, and understand the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”

Fifty Democrats and fifteen Republicans voted against the bill in the House. One of the Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, said she was against it because she had been banned from social media. After the vote, House Democrats from Florida and Illinois, such as Maxwell Frost and Delia Ramirez, joined TikTok authors outside the Capitol to say they were against the bill.

Some Democrats in the Senate have spoken out against the bill, arguing that it violates free speech, and have proposed alternatives that would deal with the problem of foreign influence on social media in general rather than TikTok in particular. While Senator Elizabeth Warren acknowledged the need for social media regulations, she emphasized that these regulations must be uniform in application. With the phrase “review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer remained neutral when asked about the Senate’s future actions.

Groups fighting for civil liberties and free speech have been firmly against a ban, arguing that it would have far-reaching effects on the internet. Although troubling, they contend that TikTok’s data methods are similar to those of other digital companies established in the US.

Jenna Ruddock, policy counsel at Free Press’s media advocacy group, said, “TikTok isn’t perfect, but TikTok ban is the wrong move.” “TikTok, like all popular apps, including the ones that Meta and Google own, gathers too much information about its users. However, taking down free speech places all at once makes it harder for people to get information and for creators to build communities.

What is going to happen next with TikTok?

It will still be hard for the bill to become law. Even though Biden said he would sign it, the Senate still needs to decide. It needs to be clarified when that vote will happen, but TikTok is expected to step up its lobbying on Capitol Hill as time passes. On Wednesday, CEO Chew will go to Congress to meet with senators.

Some bills, like Trump’s in 2020 and Montana’s in 2023, were stopped because they violated people’s right to free speech. This bill is likely to face the same problems.