The United States is escalating efforts to eliminate TikTok.
On the 7th (local time), the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce unanimously passed a 50 to 0 bill to exclude TikTok from the U.S. app store if ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, does not sell it.
More than 20 people attended this bill bipartisanally, including Republican Michael Gallagher, Chairman of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and Democratic Secretary Raja Krishnamoorthi.
After this bill takes effect, if ByteDance does not sell the app within 180 days, TikTok will be prohibited from being distributed in the app store. It must sell TikTok or appeal within 165 days after the bill takes effect.
The U.S. Congress is concerned that the Chinese government can access the personal information of up to 170 million U.S. users using TikTok. Chinese law requires domestic companies to hand over company information to the government.
TikTok urged users to protest to the congressional office using the TikTok app, saying that “members of Congress are trying to deprive 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of expression.” Some offices are said to have received hundreds of calls.
Gallagher emphasized that this bill “is not a ban on TikTok.” He said, “The choice to break ties with the Chinese Communist Party is entirely up to TikTok,” and “If ByteDance does not own this company, TikTok can continue to survive.” He emphasized, “People can continue to watch any stupid videos they want on the platform and do all the work of communicating with friends, etc.,” but “the basic ownership structure must change.”
CNN reported, “Given the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson and unanimous voting, this bill will have almost no problem passing the House,” but whether it can pass the Senate due to controversial topics such as freedom of speech remains uncertain.
The U.S. political community has always had a problem with the fact that the Chinese government can force TikTok to hand over users’ personal information to ByteDance. Through this, Chinese information can confuse American society, such as election interference. However, the U.S. government has not publicly presented evidence that the Chinese government accessed TikTok’s user information.
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