TikTok sent pop-up alerts to users asking them to sway representatives against legislation set to be advanced Thursday to restrict China’s influence over the social media platform, prompting a harsh rebuke from the bill’s author.
TikTok prompted users to input their ZIP codes and provided them with contact information for lawmakers, telling them to “stop a TikTok shutdown.” It undertook the effort as the House Energy and Commerce Committee was meeting to discuss and advance a bill written by House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or have it banned from the United States.
Gallagher slammed the app in response, saying it was lying about the bill, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, in an effort to intimidate members of Congress.
“Today, it’s about our bill, and it’s about intimidating members, but tomorrow, it could be misinformation or lies about an election,” Gallagher told reporters.
The bill would make it unlawful for app stores to host social media applications owned by companies connected to “foreign adversaries” such as China, Russia, or Iran, specifically focusing on TikTok and ByteDance. It would also give the president the power to designate other social media apps as being controlled by foreign adversaries and force divestments.
The social media app claims Gallagher’s bill is a “total ban” on TikTok. “This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,” a TikTok spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
“In the carefully, narrowly focused bill we’ve come up with here, TikTok could live on and people could do whatever they want on it, provided there is that separation [of ByteDance and TikTok],” Gallagher told reporters on Wednesday. “Again, it is not a ban. Think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient.”
TikTok would be able to avoid being banned in the U.S. by divesting itself from ByteDance.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) approved of the bill. “It’s an important bipartisan measure to take on China, our largest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security,” Johnson told Politico.
Gallagher’s bill has the support of the White House. “We appreciate the work of Reps. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi and we look forward to working with Congress to further strengthen this legislation to put it on the strongest possible legal footing,” a National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) also confirmed the bill authors worked with the White House on the legislation.