DEMOCRAT FIGURE OVER THE BILL ISSUE
A number of House Democrats voted against the bill including House Democrat Kathleen Clark, Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and top Democrats on the Judiciary, Ways and Means, Transportation and Intelligence committees.
“There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be made public before the vote,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, who will play a key role in the Senate’s next steps, said she wants legislation that “can hold up in court,” and is considering a separate bill, but is unsure what her next steps will be.
The vote came more than a week since the bill was proposed after one public hearing with little debate, and after action in Congress had stalled for more than a year. Last month, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok, raising hopes among TikTok officials that legislation was unlikely this year.
Several dozen TikTok users rallied outside the Capitol before the vote. The company paid for their trip to Washington and their accommodation, a TikTok spokesperson said.
The group includes Mona Swain, 23, who said she joined TikTok in 2019, during her freshman year of college to pursue musical theater. Now, as a full-time content creator, he says he pays for his mother’s mortgage and his brother and sister’s college education with his earnings from the app.
“This is going to put a lot of people out of work, and that’s the scariest part,” Swain said of the bill.
UNCERTAINTY OVER SALES
It is unclear whether China would agree to any sale or whether TikTok’s US assets could be divested within six months.
If ByteDance fails to do so, app stores operated by Apple, Alphabet’s Google and others cannot legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services for ByteDance-controlled apps.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump attempted to ban Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat but was blocked by the courts. In recent days, he has raised concerns about the ban, but nearly all Republican lawmakers have ignored him.
It is unclear whether Tencent’s WeChat or other popular Chinese-owned apps could face a ban under the law.
In addition to possible legal challenges from TikTok, the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups have argued that the bill is unconstitutional for free speech and other reasons.
In November, a US judge blocked a ban on TikTok in the state of Montana after the company sued.
