US House passes TikTok bill that may ban app or force its sale

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew / Photo credit: World Economic Forum

The lower house of the US Congress has passed a bill that would give ByteDance six months to sell off the US assets of its TikTok app, or face a ban.

The House of Representatives bill – titled the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – passed by a lopsided vote of 352 to 65. However, it still needs a vote in the Senate – the upper house of the US Congress – where efforts to restrict the app have stalled previously.

Should the Senate approve the bill, US President Joe Biden said that he will sign it, after which it becomes law.

The move is the culmination of a yearlong row between ByteDance and US lawmakers concerned about the Chinese government’s influence on a social app with 170 million users in the US. It is also part of larger tensions between the US and China on various spheres, including tech.

In his past testimony, ByteDance CEO Shou Zi Chew had strongly denied allegations that the TikTok app has links to the Communist Party of China, among other things. Following the latest vote, Chew said in a TikTok video that ByteDance will exercise its legal rights to fight the ban, for which it has a 165-day window after Biden’s signing.

The US is not the only country where TikTok has met government blowback, though the degrees of restriction vary. Indonesia, for one, had banned TikTok Shop late last year, though a resolution is underway following TikTok’s purchase of Indonesian ecommerce giant Tokopedia.

Indonesia’s Trade Ministry has since announced that TikTok Shop’s back-end integration with Tokopedia – a key requirement of the deal – has finished ahead of schedule.

See also: TikTok Shop gets winning hand in Indonesia via Tokopedia mega deal