House votes to force TikTok to sell or face US ban
The House passed a bill to ban TikTok on national security grounds unless it sells to a non-Chinese company
What happened
The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill to ban TikTok on national security grounds unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells the app to a non-Chinese company.
Who said what
TikTok is a "valuable propaganda tool" the Chinese Communist Party can exploit, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said, and its in-app push alert to lobby lawmakers against the bill is "just a small taste of how the CCP weaponizes applications it controls" to "further its agenda." "It's a ban based on zero evidence," TikTok spokesperson Jodi Seth said.
The commentary
TikTok's security threat has "far less to do with who owns it" than "who writes the code and algorithms," the opaque ByteDance-owned "magic sauce" that makes "TikTok tick," The New York Times said. China will not sell its algorithm.
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What next?
The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the legislation. But Former President Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok when in office, reversed course last week and opposed any ban after pressure from a Republican megadonor with a $15 billion stake in ByteDance.
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