The US House of Representatives has passed a landmark bill that could ban TikTok in the US unless the app parts ways with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. It’s a major challenge to one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, used by 170 million Americans.
While the bill passed overwhelmingly in a bipartisan 352-65 vote, it still needs to clear the Senate and be signed by the president to become law. If enacted, the bill, would give TikTok about five months to separate from ByteDance, or app stores in the US would be banned from hosting it on their platforms. It’s not yet clear what the fate of the measure will be in the Senate.
Lawmakers supportive of the bill have argued TikTok poses a national security threat because the Chinese government could use its intelligence laws against ByteDance, forcing it to hand over the data of US app users.