House Passes Tiktok Bill, As Eyes Turn To Senate

The House passed a bill on Wednesday that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the app or face a ban on U.S. app stores — posing the most serious threat to the popular video-sharing platform to date.

The measure earned wide bipartisan support — passing 352-65 — with backing from House Speaker Mike Johnson and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Its “no” votes spanned a wide ideological range, including both conservative lawmakers like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who raised Amendment concerns, and progressives like Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) who say Congress should pass privacy legislation covering all social media sites, not just TikTok.

It now heads to the Senate, where its fate is unclear.

Senators from both parties have expressed concerns about the bill, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not committed to bringing it to the floor. President Joe Biden said he’d sign the measure if it reaches his desk.

The vote on the fast-tracked bill capped a week of frenzied pressure by TikTok, which held rallies outside of the Capitol and enlisted conservative lobbyists, video creators and its own users to try to derail the legislation. The company got a boost from former president Donald Trump, who tried and failed to ban it with an executive order in 2020, but unexpectedly pivoted to supporting the company last week.

Republicans were largely unmoved by Trump’s opposition, though a handful of MAGA conservatives, like Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), voted against the bill.

As the bill moves to the Senate, some key players appear far less enthusiastic than members of the House.

Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) — whose committee is a gatekeeper for any Senate TikTok measures — threw cold water on the House bill.

“I'm glad they brought up a subject, but we got to get a real solution. That one, I don't think will make it all the way through,” she said earlier this week.

She instead wants to push her own bill — the GUARD Act, which would allow the Commerce Department to regulate TikTok and other foreign apps without banning them fully. It has not been introduced.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has said would object to a request to pass the bill unanimously, requiring Democratic leaders to spend more floor time ahead of a roll-call vote.

Paul has raised First Amendment concerns about the government banning a form of communication that’s used by 170 million American users, which civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have also raised. A law in Montana seeking to ban TikTok was blocked by a judge late last year over claims it violates the First Amendment.

The company argues that it is not a security threat, and that the bill oversteps legal boundaries. In a statement issued after the vote, X, formerly known as Twitter, said: “This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: it's a ban. We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”

The company has partnered with Oracle to store U.S. data on domestic servers to alleviate concerns the Chinese government can access Americans’ data.

There has been at least some interest in the bill from key players in the Senate.

“The perfect can’t be the enemy of the good, and if they can get a great big vote tomorrow, I think that’s good news,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who authored the RESTRICT Act last year that took a broader swing at technologies from foreign adversaries.

That bill ran into GOP backlash over concerns it gave the Biden administration too much power to act unilaterally.

“I think the approach we had a year ago is not going to make it,” Warner told reporters in an interview on Tuesday.

Warner and Senate Intel vice chair Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) met with the House bill sponsors on Tuesday to talk about a path forward.