After a long reprieve from serious congressional scrutiny, lawmakers are taking another crack at getting TikTok to sever ties from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, The Verge reported.
The leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, chair Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and ranking member Raja Krishamoorthi (D-IL), announced the introduction of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act on Tuesday. The bill, which has 19 lawmakers signed on so far, would make it illegal to distribute apps controlled by ByteDance, including TikTok, unless they sever ties from the Chinese tech giant.
According to The Verge, if enacted, the bill would impose a civil penalty on app stores and web hosting services that distribute TikTok and other covered services, unless the app is separated from Chinese ownership. The penalty for an app store that violates the law would be calculated by multiplying the number of US users that “accessed, maintained or, or updated” the foreign adversary app by $5,000. The bill would be enforced by the U.S. attorney general.
It also creates a process for the president to designate other social media companies from foreign adversary countries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as subject to the bill — meaning apps owned by designated companies that are distributed in the US would need to sever ties to continue operating there.
TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a statement that the bill “is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small business of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”
CBS News reported: For months, lawmakers have been warned of national security concerns posed by TikTok’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Last May, Montana became the first state in the nation to pass legislation banning TikTok entirely. However, that law is still facing legal challenges.
A new bipartisan House bill set for review by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday would require TikTok to divest from its Chinese-based owner ByteDance or risk a ban from app stores in the U.S.
“We implore ByteDance to sell TikTok so that its American users can enjoy their dance videos, bad lip sync, everything else that goes along with TikTok,” Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a news conference Wednesday.
According to CBS News, there are growing fears the personal information TikTok devours from its users could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.
“The choice is up to TikTok,” Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington told CBS News. “They have a choice to make as to whether or not they want to remain with ByteDance, that we know is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”
In my opinion, it might be a good idea to separate TikTok and ByteDance from it’s American users. From what I understand, US officials were warned to remove TikTok from their phones a while ago.