Republicans on a powerful House of Representatives committee on Wednesday voted for a bill that would allow President Joe Biden to ban TikTok from the United States, despite objections from Democrats and civil liberties groups.
By a vote of 24-16, the House Foreign Affairs Committee gave the go-ahead for Rep. Michael McCaul’s (R-TX) Deterring America’s Technological Adversaries Act, or DATA Act, and sends it to the House floor. The bill directs Biden to sanction or potentially ban TikTok nationwide if the administration finds that the company has shared user data with individuals associated with the Chinese government. If that data was used to surveil, hack or censor users, Biden could impose additional sanctions on TikTok and its parent company Bytedance.
“TikTok is a modern CCP Trojan horse used to monitor and exploit Americans’ personal information,” McCaul said in a draft of the bill Tuesday.
While there are bipartisan concerns about TikTok’s potential risks to national security, Democrats fear McCaul’s solution, introduced last Friday, is even riskier. The committee’s top Democrat, Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY), called the bill “dangerously too broad” and argued that its passage could affect businesses in ally countries in Europe and Taiwan.
“Congress should not censor entire platforms and deprive Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression”
The American Civil Liberties Union echoed these concerns in a letter to McCaul on Monday, saying the bill threatens the First Amendment.
“Congress cannot censor entire platforms and strip Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of speech. Whether discussing the news of the day, live streaming protests or even watching cat videos, we have a right to use TikTok and other platforms to share our thoughts, ideas and opinions with people across the country and around the world . world,” Jenna Leventoff, ACLU senior policy advisor, said in a statement Tuesday.
In response to the committee’s vote, TikTok has issued a statement saying that banning the app would effectively place “a ban on the export of American culture and values” to the company’s international audience.
“We are disappointed to see this rushed piece of legislation moving forward despite the significant negative impact on the free speech of millions of Americans who use and love TikTok,” the company said.
Shortly after Wednesday’s vote McCaul said Reuters that he expects the bill to be put to a vote this month. But before the bill makes its way to Biden, the Democratic-controlled Senate must also approve it.
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