While the U.S. House overwhelmingly approved a potential ban on the social media app TikTok on Wednesday, the measure now faces an uncertain reception from Sen. Maria Cantwell and others in the Senate.
Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, leads the Senate’s Commerce Committee, which is expected to be the bill’s next stop.
The legislation directs ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell the popular video app to a non-Chinese owner within six months or it will be banned in the U.S. Violation of the law would trigger civil penalties based on the number of U.S. users of the app — which is currently reported to be 170 million Americans.
In a comment to NBC News, Cantwell said, “I’m not sure what we’ll do yet, got to talk to lots of people.”
“The whole point here is you have a dilemma,” she added. “You want free speech, but you also want the United States to have some ability to protect U.S. citizens or U.S. military from foreign actors who might be deleterious in what they would be using as a tool of communication. So we want to get a tool to those people, whether that’s the Department of Commerce or DOJ, so that they can sustain those actions.”
Cantwell, a former RealNetworks executive, last year began work on her own measure to address threats posed by foreign-owned companies such as ByteDance. The GUARD Act would give the U.S. the legal authority to stop foreign governments from using technology in ways that harm its citizens and military. The bill has not been introduced.
Ahead of a closed-door meeting in Seattle last month, Cantwell asked tech leaders from companies including Amazon and Microsoft to partner with her in efforts to detect threatening activities.
“It will take a lot of technology,” she said, “to discover what they might be doing.”
Numerous states have banned the TikTok app on government-owned devices due to security concerns. There are worries that TikTok will share user information with Chinese authorities and that the country’s government can use the app to spread misinformation.
The House bill, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, states that its aim is to “protect the national security of the United States.”
But despite TikTok’s potential risks, only 38% of U.S. adults said they would support a ban of the app, according to a fall 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center survey. Six months previously, half of adults favored a ban. Younger respondents were even less likely to support a ban, with 29% of adults under 30 in favor, and 18% of teens in support.
Two U.S. representatives from Washington opposed the measure in the Wednesday vote. Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats, were among the 65 members of the House who voted against the proposed law, which passed the House with 352 votes.
“The bill provides an unworkable path to remove TikTok from ownership by a Chinese company, making it a de facto ban,” Jayapal said in a statement. “This would harm users who rely on TikTok for their livelihoods, many of whom are people of color.”
TikTok has launched a campaign encouraging its users to contact lawmakers and voice their opposition to the potential ban.
Politico has reported that Cantwell opposes the House bill, and noted that two of her former staff work for consulting firms whose clients include TikTok. One of the staff members left Cantwell’s office in 2020, the other in 2007. The senator shared a neutral opinion on the legislation with other media outlets.
“I’m very concerned about foreign adversaries’ exploitation of Americans’ sensitive data and their attempts to build backdoors in our information communication technology and services supply chains,” Cantwell said in a statement to GeekWire this week. “These are national security threats and it is good members in both chambers are taking them seriously. I will be talking to my Senate and House colleagues to try to find a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties.”
