Senate passes bill forcing Tiktok’s parent company to sell or face ban, sends to Biden for signature

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force Tiktok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that’s expected to face legal challenges and disrupt the lives of content creators who rely on the short-form video app for income.

The Tiktok legislation was included as part of a larger $95 billion package that provides foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel and was passed 79-18. It now goes to President Joe Biden, who said in a statement immediately after passage that he will sign it Wednesday.

A decision made by House Republicans last week to attach the Tiktok bill to the high-priority package helped expedite its passage in Congress and came after negotiations with the Senate, where an earlier version of the bill had stalled. That version had given Tiktok’s parent company, Bytedance, six months to divest its stakes in the platform. But it drew skepticism from some key lawmakers concerned it was too short of 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 in progress. The bill would also bar the company from controlling Tiktok’s secret sauce: the algorithm that feeds users videos based on their interests and has made the platform a trendsetting phenomenon.

Tiktok did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday night.