The Senate passed legislation on Tuesday that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under threat of a ban, a controversial move by U.S. lawmakers that is expected to face lawsuits and disruption the lives of content creators who depend on the short video app to generate income.
The TikTok legislation was included in a broader $95 billion package to provide foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel and passed by a vote of 79 to 18. The matter now falls to President Joe Biden, who supported TikTok’s proposal and said he would sign the package as soon as he received it.
The decision by House Republicans last week to attach the TikTok bill to the high-priority package helped speed its passage through Congress and came after negotiations with the Senate, where an earlier version of the bill was at a standstill. This version gave TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, six months to sell its stake in the platform. But that sparked skepticism from 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 pending. The bill would also prohibit the company from controlling TikTok’s secret sauce: the algorithm that feeds users’ videos based on their interests and that has made the platform a trendsetting phenomenon.
Passage of the legislation is the culmination of long-standing bipartisan fears in Washington over Chinese threats and ownership of TikTok, used by 170 million Americans. For years, lawmakers and administration officials have expressed concern that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data, or influence Americans by removing 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, and slanderous operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our military, and our U.S. government personnel. »
Opponents of the bill say the Chinese government could easily obtain information about Americans through other means, including through commercial data brokers who traffic in personal information. The foreign aid program includes a provision that prohibits data brokers from selling or renting “sensitive personally identifiable data” to North Korea, China, Russia, Iran or entities of those countries. But the proposal has faced some resistance, including from the American Civil Liberties Union, which says the language is too general and could attract journalists and others posting personal information. .
Many opponents of the TikTok measure argue that the best way to protect American consumers is to implement…
