A bipartisan bill, titled the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” was approved unanimously by the US House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, which would make it “unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update…a foreign adversary controlled application,” naming ByteDance, Ltd., TikTok and their subsidiaries as foreign adversaries.
The civil penalties for violating the bill’s prohibitions would be “an amount not to exceed the amount that results from multiplying $5,000 by the number of users…[who] have accessed, maintained, or updated a foreign adversary controlled application.” These prohibitions would effectively force ByteDance to either shut down or sell TikTok.
This bill comes after concerns were raised regarding TikTok’s use of user data. The company has been accused of allowing executives and engineers in China to access private data. TikTok CEO Shou Chew denied all allegations of data misuse. As a result of the allegations, Montana became the first state to ban TikTok in May of last year.
While the bill has support from both sides of the aisle, Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) condemned the bill, saying, “[T]he rush to ban TikTok sets a dangerous precedent for our country by undermining our freedom of speech and distracts from the real issue: protecting Americans’ data and privacy.” Former President Donald Trump also announced his opposition to the bill, saying, “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckershmuch will double their business.” Trump previously tried to prohibit business with ByteDance during his administration.
TikTok took to X (formerly Twitter) to voice its concern over the bill, calling it “an outright ban on TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it.” The post also stated the ban would “deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise posted on X that he plans to bring “this critical national security bill” to the House for a vote next week.
