The US House of Representatives voted on a bill requiring the sale of TikTok.
On Wednesday, March 13, the US House of Representatives voted on a bill that would force TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the social media platform, according to reports. Watchman.
Motion 352:65 accepted. The legislation faces an ambiguous fate in the Senate. Chuck SchumerBut the Democratic majority leader has not yet committed to the referral.
If the company does not comply, TikTok will disappear from US app stores.
TikTok has recently been the subject of serious political debate, and according to critics, ByteDance collects sensitive user data and can censor content. TikTok has repeatedly stated that it has not and will not share US user data with the Chinese government.
However Donald Trump In 2020, he tried to ban the platform, and in 2023, a statewide ban was passed in Montana. Ultimately, the courts blocked both bans, and Trump has since changed his stance on the platform. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), led by the Treasury Department, called on ByteDance to sell its shares in TikTok in March 2023 or face a possible ban on the app, but no action has been taken since then.
The future of the just-passed bill is uncertain. Some Senate Democrats publicly oppose this legislation, citing free speech concerns. Instead, they propose measures that would address concerns about foreign influence on social media without specifically targeting TikTok. While the current proposal targets TikTok, other Chinese-owned platforms, including Tencent's WeChat operation in the US, are likely to be affected.
