Tiktok bill’s fate uncertain

Both GOP, Democrats in Senate divided despite House approval

WASHINGTON — The young voices in the messages left for North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis were laughing, but the words were ominous.

“OK, listen, if you ban Tiktok I will find you and shoot you,” one said, giggling and talking over other young voices in the background. “I’ll shoot you and find you and cut you into pieces.” Another threatened to kill Tillis, and then take their own life.

Tillis’s office says it has received around 1,000 calls about Tiktok since the House passed legislation this month that would ban the app if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake. Tiktok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers.

Tillis, who supports the House bill, reported the call to the police. “What I hated about that was it demonstrates the enormous influence social media platforms have on young people,” he said in an interview.

President Joe Biden has said he would sign the House bill, which overwhelmingly passed 362-65 this month after a rare 50-0 committee vote moving it to the floor.

But it’s already running into roadblocks in the Senate, where there is little unanimity on the best approach to ensure that China doesn’t access private data from the app’s 170 million U.S. users or influence them through its algorithms.

Other factors are holding the Senate back. The tech industry is broad and falls under the jurisdiction of several different committees. Plus, the issues at play don’t fall cleanly on partisan lines, making it harder for lawmakers to agree on priorities and how legislation should be written. Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-wash., has so far been reluctant to embrace the Tiktok bill, for example, calling for hearings first and suggesting that the Senate may want to rewrite it.

“We’re going through a process,” Cantwell said. “It’s important to get it right.”

Republicans are also divided. While most of them support the Tiktok legislation, others are wary of overregulation and the government targeting one specific entity.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said very little about the Tiktok bill or whether he might put it on the Senate floor.