US much closer to banning TikTok, despite users’ protests.
On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill with a vote of 352–65 that could block TikTok in the US. Fifteen Republicans and 50 Democrats voted in opposition, and one Democrat voted present, CNN reported.
TikTok is not happy. A spokesperson told Ars, “This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: it’s a ban. We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”
Lawmakers insist that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is not a ban. Instead, they claim the law gives TikTok a choice: either divest from ByteDance’s China-based owners or face the consequences of TikTok being cut off in the US.
Under the law—which still must pass the Senate, a more significant hurdle, where less consensus is expected and a companion bill has not yet been introduced—app stores and hosting services would face steep consequences if they provide access to apps controlled by US foreign rivals. That includes allowing the app to be updated or maintained by US users who already have the app on their devices.
Violations subject app stores and hosting services to fines of $5,000 for each individual US user “determined to have accessed, maintained, or updated a foreign adversary-controlled application.” With 170 million Americans currently on TikTok, that could add up quickly to eye-popping fines.Advertisement
If the bill becomes law, app stores and hosting services would have 180 days to limit access to foreign adversary-controlled apps. The bill specifically names TikTok and ByteDance as restricted apps, making it clear that lawmakers intend to quash the alleged “national security threat” that TikTok poses in the US.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), a proponent of the bill, has said that “foreign adversaries like China pose the greatest national security threat of our time. With applications like TikTok, these countries are able to target, surveil, and manipulate Americans.” The proposed bill “ends this practice by banning applications controlled by foreign adversaries of the United States that pose a clear national security risk.”
McMorris Rodgers has also made it clear that “our goal is to get this legislation onto the president’s desk.” Joe Biden has indicated he will sign the bill into law, leaving the Senate as the final hurdle to clear. Senators told CNN that they were waiting to see what happened in the House before seeking a path forward in the Senate that would respect TikTok users’ civil liberties.
Attempts to ban TikTok have historically not fared well in the US, with a recent ban in Montana being reversed by a federal judge last December. Judge Donald Molloy granted TikTok’s request for a preliminary injunction, denouncing Montana’s ban as an unconstitutional infringement of Montana-based TikTok users’ rights.
More recently, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has slammed House lawmakers for rushing the bill through Congress, accusing lawmakers of attempting to stifle free speech. ACLU senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff said in a press release that lawmakers were “once again attempting to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year.”
“Just because the bill sponsors claim that banning TikTok isn’t about suppressing speech, there’s no denying that it would do just that,” Leventoff said.
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According to the BBC, China has warned that a TikTok ban would “come back to bite” the US, with Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin accusing the US of “suppressing TikTok” despite never finding “evidence that TikTok threatens national security.”
“This kind of bullying behaviour that cannot win in fair competition disrupts companies’ normal business activity, damages the confidence of international investors in the investment environment, and damages the normal international economic and trade order,” Wang said.
TikTok has also pushed back on lawmakers’ claims that the law would not ban TikTok, as other laws deemed unconstitutional would. A TikTok spokesperson told Ars ahead of the vote that “this bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. 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.”
To defend against the ban, TikTok recently prompted users to contact lawmakers to urge them to vote against the bill, pushing a notification at log-in that caused lawmakers’ phones to ring off the hook.
McMorris Rodgers suggested TikTok’s call to action was “one real time example of how they can manipulate Americans for their own purposes,” claiming that TikTok was “able to weaponize their tool to motivate a lot of people to call.”Advertisement
“Many offices were saying that it was more calls than they had ever received,” McMorris Rodgers said.
TikTok’s spokesperson told Ars that TikTok users could have simply dismissed the notification and gone on about their day. In a letter to lawmakers, TikTok Vice President of Public Policy Michael Beckerman chastised lawmakers who criticized the tactic, writing that lawmakers appeared to be riled by Americans “exercising their First Amendment rights and contacting their democratically elected representatives” after “this latest legislation being rushed through at unprecedented speed without even the benefit of a public hearing” clearly posed “serious Constitutional concerns.”
According to that letter, it wasn’t China or the Chinese Communist Party that decided to prompt users to call but “American employees in leadership roles based in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.”
For TikTok users nervous that the bill is now closer to becoming law, it may be some comfort to know that the bill also includes a provision penalizing apps for cutting off access to TikTok users’ data and content.
Under the law, “all the available data,” including content like posts, photos, and videos, must be portable to an alternative app, or else apps face fines of $500 per user denied access to their data.
