Senate passes bill requiring TikTok’s China-based parent to sell platform or be banned in US

The Senate handed a bill Tuesday to drive TikTok’s China-based parent firm, ByteDance, to sell the video sharing social media platform or face a ban in the U.S., as lawmakers accuse the platform of gathering consumer knowledge and spreading propaganda.

The TikTok legislation was half of a bigger $95 billion package deal to present international help to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that handed the Upper Chamber by a 79 to 18 vote. The package deal now heads to President Biden, who mentioned he plans to signal it Wednesday.

House Republicans’ choice final week to connect the TikTok bill to the international help package deal helped expedite its passage, after an earlier model of the bill had stalled in the Senate. The Senate model would have given ByteDance six months to divest its stake in the platform, which some lawmakers believed was too in need of a window for a posh deal doubtlessly value tens of billions of {dollars}.

The new measure offers ByteDance 9 months to sell TikTok, in addition to a doable three-month extension if a sale is in progress. The bill would additionally prohibit the corporate from controlling the algorithm that reveals customers movies based mostly on their pursuits.

HOUSE PASSES NATIONAL SECURITY BILL TARGETING TIKTOK, SEIZED RUSSIAN ASSETS: ‘CHURCHILL OR CHAMBERLAIN’

The Senate handed a bill Tuesday to drive TikTok’s China-based parent firm, ByteDance, to sell the video sharing social media platform or face a ban. ((Photo Ilustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto through Getty Images) / Getty Images)

The passage of the laws comes amid bipartisan fears in Congress over Chinese threats, which incorporates the possession of TikTok. Lawmakers and administration officers have expressed issues for years that Chinese officers may drive ByteDance to present U.S. consumer knowledge and affect Americans by selling sure content material on the platform.

“Congress is not acting to punish ByteDance, TikTok or any other individual company,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell mentioned. “Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our U.S. government personnel.”

Opponents of the bill declare the Chinese authorities may simply entry Americans’ data in different methods, together with by business knowledge brokers that visitors in private data. The international help package deal additionally features a provision to make it unlawful for knowledge brokers to sell or lease personally identifiable delicate knowledge to North Korea, China, Russia, Iran or entities in these international locations, however critics, together with the American Civil Liberties Union, say the language is just too imprecise and will influence journalists and others who publish private data.

Many opponents of the TikTok bill argue that one of the best ways to defend U.S. customers is by implementing a complete federal knowledge privateness regulation focusing on all firms, no matter their nation of origin. These opponents additionally say the U.S. has not offered public proof displaying that TikTok shares U.S. consumer data with the Chinese authorities, or that Chinese officers have ever toyed with its algorithm.

“Banning TikTok would be an extraordinary step that requires extraordinary justification,” mentioned Becca Branum, a deputy director on the Center for Democracy & Technology. “Extending the divestiture deadline neither justifies the urgency of the threat to the public nor addresses the legislation’s fundamental constitutional flaws.”

SENATORS SLAM ‘DELAY TACTIC’ ON TIKTOK BILL DESPITE ‘NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE’

The TikTok laws was half of a bigger $95 billion package deal to present international help to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. ((Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) / Getty Images)

Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden, who voted for the measure, mentioned he has issues about TikTok but in addition fears the bill may have harm free speech, doesn’t do sufficient to defend client privateness and will doubtlessly be utilized by a future administration to violate First Amendment rights.

“I plan to watchdog how this legislation is implemented,” Wyden mentioned in a press release.

China has beforehand mentioned it might oppose forcing the sale of TikTok, and has signaled it might oppose the newest laws. TikTok has lengthy denied it’s a safety menace, and is getting ready a lawsuit to block the laws.

“At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,” TikTok’s head of public coverage for the Americas, Michael Beckerman, wrote in a memo despatched to staff on Saturday.

“This is the beginning, not the end of this long process,” Beckerman wrote.

The platform has had some success with courtroom challenges in the previous, nevertheless it has by no means tried to stop federal laws from going into impact.

The new measure offers ByteDance 9 months to sell TikTok, in addition to a doable three-month extension if a sale is in progress. ((Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) / Getty Images)

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Former President Trump, whose administration had sought to ban TikTok if it was not bought to an American firm, now says he opposes a ban as he seeks the presidency once more in the 2024 election.

TikTok creators who depend on the app for earnings have spoken out towards the bill, together with at a protest in entrance of the Capitol on Tuesday.

Tiffany Cianci, a content material creator who has greater than 140,000 followers on the platform, mentioned she believes TikTok is the most secure platform for customers proper now due to Project Texas, the platform’s $1.5 billion mitigation plan to retailer U.S. consumer knowledge on servers owned and maintained by the tech big Oracle.

“If our data is not safe on TikTok, I would ask why the president is on TikTok,” she mentioned.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.