WASHINGTON-
The US Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under threat of a ban, a controversial move by US lawmakers that is expected to face legal challenges and disrupt the lives of content creators who depend on the short-form video app for income.
The TikTok legislation was included as part of a broader $95 billion package providing foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel and passed by a vote of 79 to 18. It now falls to President Joe Biden, who endorsed TikTok’s proposal and said he will sign the package as soon as he receives it.
The decision by House Republicans last week to attach the TikTok bill to the high-priority package helped speed its passage in Congress and came after negotiations with the Senate, where an earlier version of the bill law had stalled. That version had given TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, six months to divest its stakes in the platform. But it generated skepticism among some key lawmakers, concerned that it was too short a window for a complex deal that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.
The revised legislation extends the deadline, giving ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok and a possible three-month extension if a sale is in progress. The bill would also prevent the company from controlling TikTok’s secret sauce: the algorithm that feeds users videos based on their interests and has turned the platform into a trend-setting phenomenon.
The passage of the legislation is the culmination of long-standing bipartisan fears in Washington about Chinese threats and ownership of TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans. For years, lawmakers and administration officials have expressed concern that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over data on American users or influence Americans by suppressing or promoting certain content on TikTok.
“Congress is not acting to punish ByteDance, TikTok or any other individual company,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell. “Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, smear operations, and harm to vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our U.S. government personnel.”
Opponents of the bill say the Chinese government could easily obtain information about Americans in other ways, including through commercial data brokers that traffic in personal information. The foreign aid package includes a provision that makes it illegal for data brokers to sell or rent “sensitive personally identifiable data” to North Korea, China, Russia, Iran or entities in those countries. But it has faced some opposition, including from the American Civil Liberties Union, which says the language is written too broadly and could affect journalists and others who publish personal information.
Many opponents of the TikTok measure argue that the best way to protect American consumers is by implementing a comprehensive federal data privacy law that targets all companies regardless of their origin. They also note that the United States has not provided public evidence showing that TikTok shares American user information with Chinese authorities, or that Chinese officials have ever modified its algorithm.
“Banning TikTok would be an extraordinary step that requires extraordinary justification,” said Becca Branum, deputy director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for digital rights. “Extending the divestment deadline does not justify the urgency of the threat to the public nor address the legislation’s fundamental constitutional flaws.”
China has previously said it would oppose a forced sale of TikTok, and this time it has voiced its opposition. TikTok, which has long denied it is a security threat, is also preparing a lawsuit to block the legislation.
“The moment the bill is signed, we will go to court to file a legal challenge,” Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, wrote in a memo sent to employees on Saturday and obtained by The Associated Press.
“This is the beginning, not the end, of this long process,” Beckerman wrote.
The company has had some success in court challenges in the past, but has never tried to stop federal legislation from taking effect.
In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law that would ban TikTok statewide after the company and five content creators who use the platform filed a lawsuit. Three years before that, federal courts blocked an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump to ban TikTok after the company filed a lawsuit alleging the order violated free speech and due process rights.
The Trump administration then negotiated a deal in which US corporations Oracle and Walmart acquired a large stake in TikTok. But the sale never materialized.
Trump, who is running for president again this year, now says he opposes the potential ban.
Since then, TikTok has been in negotiations over its future with the secretive U.S. Foreign Investment Committee, a little-known government agency tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security reasons.
On Sunday, Erich Andersen, a top ByteDance lawyer who led talks with the US government for years, told his team he was resigning from his position.
“As I began to reflect a few months ago on the tensions of the past few years and the new generation of challenges ahead, I decided the time was right to pass the baton to a new leader,” Andersen wrote in an internal memo. which was obtained by the AP. He said the decision to resign was entirely his and was decided months ago in a discussion with the company’s senior management.
Meanwhile, TikTok content creators who rely on the app have been trying to make their voices heard. Earlier Tuesday, some creators gathered outside the Capitol building to speak out against the bill, holding signs that read “I’m one of the 170 million Americans on TikTok,” among other things.
Tiffany Cianci, a content creator who has more than 140,000 followers on the platform and had encouraged people to attend, said she spent Monday night picking up creators at DC-area airports. Some came from as far away as Nevada and California. Others drove overnight from South Carolina or took a bus from upstate New York.
Cianci says he believes TikTok is the safest platform for users right now because of Project Texas, TikTok’s $1.5 billion mitigation plan to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by tech giant Oracle. .
“If our data is not safe on TikTok,” he said. “I would like to ask why the president is on TikTok.”
—-
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.