A bill to forbid the use of the well-known social media app TikTok in the US will be put to vote by the US House Foreign Affairs Committee next month, the committee announced on Friday.
Representative Michael McCaul, the panel’s head, has proposed a bill that would grant the White House the authority to ban TikTok due to national security considerations.
Bloomberg News, which first reported the time of the vote, quoted McCaul as saying, “The issue is that this program gives the Chinese government a back entrance into our phones.”
Donald Trump, who was president at the time, tried to ban transactions that would have virtually stopped the usage of the short video-sharing app in the nation in 2020 and prevent new users from installing TikTok.
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Still, he lost several court cases over the proposal. The Biden administration formally gave up on that endeavor in June 2021. Then, in December, Republican Senator Marco Rubio unveiled legislation that would ban TikTok and stop all business dealings with social media firms based in or controlled by China and Russia.
The US Congress could approve a ban this year, and McCaul’s remarks increase the pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration to compel ByteDance, the app’s Chinese parent firm, to sell its US business.
Some of the current initiatives, according to McCaul, run the risk of being legally quashed due to free speech concerns. The Texas Republican expressed doubt that any suggested firewall would sufficiently protect US users from the massively popular short video platform and its Chinese parent.
He said the committee is currently working on a new law that would include numerous TikTok ban ideas and address constitutional concerns. McCaul’s efforts coincide with previous attempts to outlaw TikTok in the US in the House and Senate, including a bill sponsored by Democrats Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Republicans Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin.
This week, Colorado Representative Ken Buck and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley each introduced their versions of the prohibition. In an interview, Hawley pushed the committee looking into the national security implications of TikTok to complete its job as soon as possible and claimed that selling the app to an American buyer would ease his worries.
A blanket ban on the app would be a “piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy, and online damages,” according to Brooke Oberwetter, a spokeswoman for TikTok.
She said, “We hope lawmakers will concentrate their efforts on addressing those concerns holistically, rather than thinking that banning a single service would solve any problems they’re concerned about or make Americans safer.”
Recently, the US Congress passed legislation banning TikTok from government smartphones, and more than half of the US states have followed suit. The hazards posed by the platform have also been examined by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
McCaul’s measure would then be discussed on the House floor if adopted. However, Congress would have difficulty passing a ban on TikTok, which is popular among teenagers and would require 60 votes in the Senate.
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TikTok, which has more than 100 million US subscribers, has been attempting for three years to reassure Washington that the personal information of American residents cannot be accessible by the Chinese Communist Party or anyone else under the control of Beijing, its content cannot be distorted.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for the White House, refrained from commenting on the bill to ban TikTok on Friday.
She replied, “I am not going to delve into details on it because (CFIUS) is reviewing it right now. Federal personnel is not permitted to use or download TikTok on equipment owned by the government, according to legislation Biden signed in December.
The use of TikTok on equipment owned by the government is prohibited in more than 25 US states. In the meantime, according to people familiar with the situation, ByteDance chief counsel Erich Andersen is no longer in charge of TikTok’s US government interactions as part of a restructuring to strengthen the company’s position amid increased national security scrutiny.
According to one of the people, he will continue to oversee the work with CFIUS. To prevent the US government from outlawing the app, TikTok has been in touch with US officials responsible for handling national security matters.
