TikTok ban bill: What's next in Congress, Senate, what it means

The House passed a bill Wednesday that could lead to what amounts to an effective ban on TikTok unless TikTok’s parent company sells the app.

A U.S. government ban of TikTok could push users to figure out alternative ways to access the app, something that has become more common in other parts of the world as governments have instituted varying rules on tech companies.

On Wednesday, the House passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would amount to a ban on TikTok unless TikTok’s parent company sells the app. The bill still needs to clear the Senate, but President Joe Biden said last week that he would sign it if it comes to his desk.

If passed as written, the bill would give the president the power to force certain foreign-owned social media apps to choose between selling them off or being banned if U.S. intelligence agencies deem them a threat.

The bill’s most vocal proponents and national security officials have said this would apply to TikTok’s parent company, China-based Bytedance, for two reasons: the app collects data on its 170 million American users, and in theory it could be used to push Chinese propaganda.

Privacy advocates have long said that TikTok doesn’t collect substantially more information on its users than other apps, and a better solution would be to simply pass a substantial data privacy law, which the U.S. does not have. And while China is frequently accused of trying to seed online propaganda aimed at swaying American opinion, it is usually strikingly ineffective at it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-ban-bill-congress-senate-means-date-rcna143189

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