Why the U.S. voted to force TikTok to be sold or banned

push to force the Chinese company ByteDance to divest itself of ownership of the short-form video app TikTok in the United States took a leap forward as the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday night to ban the social media platform unless it is sold to a government-approved buyer.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed the legislation, which the

House of Representatives approved Saturday.

Lawmakers raising concerns about data security in the United States, Europe and Canada have escalated efforts to restrict the popular app’s reach.

The Senate voted 79-18 to give the company up to a year to find a buyer, considering the measure on the same day as Congress voted on an aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. The bill would also impose sanctions on Iran.

Momentum has been building for more than a year. The White House had told federal agencies in February 2023 to delete TikTok from government devices. The next month, House lawmakers grilled TikTok CEO Shou Chew about the app’s ownership and China’s potential influence.

In March 2024, the House Energy and Commerce Committee adA vanced a bill calling for TikTok to cut ties with its parent company or face a ban in the United States. The bill, endorsed by the White House, passed in March, but the Senate took no action. Bundling a version of that measure with the aid package was meant to force the Senate’s hand.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO CHINA

Lawmakers and regulators in the West have increasingly expressed concern that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, may put sensitive user data, like location information, into the hands of the Chinese government. They have pointed to laws that allow the Chinese government to secretly demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence-gathering operations.

They also worry that China could use TikTok’s content recommendations to fuel misinformation, a concern that has escalated in the United States during the Israel-Hamas war and the presidential campaign. Critics say TikTok has fueled the spread of antisemitism and promoted pro-Palestinian content to U.S. users. TikTok has long denied such allegations and has tried to distance itself from ByteDance, which is considered one of the world’s most highly valued startups.

HAVE ANY COUNTRIES BANNED TIKTOK?

Yes, India did in 2020, costing ByteDance one of its biggest markets. The government there cracked down on hundreds of Chinese-owned apps, claiming in part that they were secretly transmitting users’ data to foreign servers.

Other countries and government bodies — including Britain and its Parliament, Australia, Canada, the executive arm of the European Union, France and New Zealand’s Parliament — have banned the app from official devices. Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs recently declared TikTok a dangerous product representing a national security threat.

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE LOCAL LEVEL?

More than 30 states, and New York City, have joined the federal government in banning TikTok on government-issued devices. Many colleges have blocked it from campus Wi-Fi networks. But students often just switch to cellular data to use it.

In May 2023, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill to ban TikTok from operating inside the state, the first prohibition of its kind in the nation.

TikTok filed suit, saying the legislation violated the First Amendment. In late November, a federal judge agreed and put the legislation on hold.

Last August, New York City banned TikTok from city-owned devices after its cybersecurity agency determined that the app “posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks,” a City Hall spokesperson said.

In December, a federal judge in Texas upheld a ban preventing state employees from using TikTok, finding it to be a “reasonable restriction” in light of Texas’ concerns about data privacy.

HOW WOULD THE BAN WORK?

Federal lawmakers turned their attention to forcing a sale of TikTok to a buyer that would be acceptable to the U.S. government, under threat of a ban.

The mechanics of a ban would take aim at app stores, like those operated by Apple and Google: if they distributed or updated TikTok, the federal government could impose civil penalties on them. Internet hosting companies would also be barred from helping to distribute or maintain TikTok.

The push to force a TikTok

sale has already generated speculation about potential buyers, including a group of investors brought together by a former Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin; large American corporations; or a coalition of private equity firms.

The sell-or-be-banned approach has raised concern among advocates for digital rights that the United States may be undermining its role in promoting an open and free internet that is not controlled by individual countries.

Previous legislative efforts had been more focused on a ban, including a bill that passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March 2023, granting a president the authority to ban the platform. (Courts had previously stopped a Trump administration effort to do this while it was trying to force a sale.)

In January 2023, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a bill to ban TikTok for all Americans after pushing for a measure, which passed in December 2022 as part of a spending package, that banned TikTok on devices issued by the federal government.

FIRST AMENDMENT CHALLENGE LIKELY

Most of the existing TikTok bans have been put in place by governments and universities that have the power to keep an app off devices or networks that they own and operate.

A broader, governmentimposed ban that blocks Americans from using the app could face legal challenges on First Amendment grounds, said Caitlin Chin, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. After all, large numbers of Americans, including elected officials and major news entities like The New York Times and The Washington Post, produce videos on TikTok. It is a place where users share artwork, information and opinions about political topics like abortion rights.

First Amendment experts have said that justifying a ban would be a high bar for the government to clear.