Congress approves a bill that could ban TikTok in the United States

The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved, on Wednesday evening, a draft law that gives ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, a six-month deadline to liquidate the American assets of the short video app, or face a ban.

The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved, on Wednesday evening, a draft law that gives ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, a six-month deadline to liquidate the American assets of the short video app, or face a ban.

The Council approved the bill by a majority of 352 votes to 65, in an unbalanced vote between the Republican and Democratic parties.

But the bill faces a more uncertain path in the Senate, where some favor a different approach to regulating apps that raise security concerns and are owned by foreign companies.

“This is a sensitive national security issue,” Republican Representative Steve Scalise wrote on X. “The Senate should consider and approve this matter.”

The fate of TikTok, which is used by about 170 million Americans, has become a major issue in Washington. Lawmakers said their offices have received large numbers of calls from teenage TikTok users who oppose the legislation.

“We want to see the Senate take action quickly,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.

For his part, TikTok CEO Xu Zi Qiu explained in a video clip published on Wednesday that the legislation, if passed into law, “will lead to TikTok being banned in the United States and will deprive creators and small businesses of billions of dollars, and expose 300,000 jobs in the United States.” United States at risk.

He added that the company "will not stop fighting" and will exercise its legal rights to prevent the ban.

China's Foreign Ministry criticized the legislation on Tuesday, saying that "although the United States has never found any evidence that TikTok poses a threat to US national security, it has never stopped pursuing TikTok."

It is not yet clear whether China will approve any sale or whether TikTok's US assets could be liquidated within six months.

If ByteDance does not do what the legislation requires, the app stores run by Apple, Google, and others cannot legally provide downloads of the TikTok app or provide website hosting services for apps controlled by ByteDance.

It remains unclear whether other Chinese apps such as WeChat could face a ban under the same legislation.