Janice Schakowsky (IL)
David Schweikert (AZ)
Greg Steube (FL)
Eric Swalwell (CA)
Norma Torres (CA)
Juan Vargas (CA)
Nydia Velazquez (NY)
Nikema Williams (GA)
The bill stipulates that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, must sell TikTok to an American company within six months. Otherwise, TikTok will be banned from U.S. app stores. A company associated with the Chinese government owns a 1 percent stake in Bytedance, leading politicians on both sides of the aisle to warn that TikTok poses a threat to national security and data privacy.
With both political parties eager to seem tough on China, particularly during an election year, cracking down on TikTok is an easy move. But critics of the bill have accused lawmakers of seeking to make themselves look good instead of actually enacting meaningful legislation.
“We’re deeply disappointed that our leaders are once again attempting to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year,” Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement last week. “Just because the bill sponsors claim that banning TikTok isn’t about suppressing speech, there’s no denying that it would do just that.”
This article has been updated.