House passes TikTok bill that could ban app in the U.S., spawning Senate support

For years, lawmakers have been introducing proposals seeking to restrict the company’s activities in the U.S., and finding limited momentum. But these lengthy behind-the-scenes deliberations were hastened, lawmakers said, by the Biden administration’s growing support of the effort, coupled with concerns about TikTok’s potential to influence U.S. politics, which intensified after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Private briefings from national security and law enforcement officials, including a classified hearing last week, served as a “call to action” for Congress to “finally” take a stand against TikTok, said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It’s unclear whether these meetings with the FBI, Justice Department and Office of the Director of the National Intelligence surfaced new evidence against the company.

Proponents of the renewed campaign in the House, who sped the bill from introduction to a floor vote in just eight days, were undeterred by a major lobbying blitz from TikTok, which enlisted its users to speak out against the legislation with in-app pop-up messages and dispatched CEO Shou Zi Chew to muster support against it this week in the Senate.

“We were working with stakeholders for months on this particular issue after the last attempt and that’s why, in part, the vote is so big,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors.

Its fate now rests in the Senate, where the bill picked up two major endorsements Wednesday, but where key holdouts could grind the effort to a jarring halt. Some senators have expressed concern that it may run afoul of the Constitution by infringing on millions of Americans’ rights to free expression and by explicitly targeting a business operating in the United States.

“The overwhelming vote today is a strong signal to the Senate that they need to act,” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), whose committee advanced the TikTok bill just days prior, told reporters.

Though TikTok is incorporated in the United States and has headquarters in Los Angeles, its ties to Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance have long triggered fears that the app could be weaponized by the Chinese government to snoop on Americans or shape their political views. TikTok says it has never shared U.S. user data with China, and its critics have yet to present evidence to the contrary. TikTok has also disputed claims of any foreign interference or influence.

But the assurances have failed to assuage many lawmakers on Capitol Hill. TikTok has been unable to reach a deal with national security officials to quell their concerns - fueling efforts in Congress.

TikTok blasted the House’s “secret” discussions over its future on Wednesday, saying in a statement that “the bill was jammed through for one reason: it’s a ban.”

“We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service,” the company said in a social media post.

Lawmakers unveiled several proposals last year aimed at granting the federal government more power to restrict TikTok and other apps believed to be linked to U.S. adversaries. Last March, House lawmakers hauled in TikTok’s CEO for a contentious hearing as they looked to build momentum for action against the firm.

The push appeared to fizzle amid blowback from liberal Democrats, who said it flouted free-speech rights, and Republicans, who argued it would grant the federal government excessive power to prohibit or censor digital services.

The dynamics suddenly shifted last week after the leaders of key House committees announced they had reached an agreement on new legislation targeting TikTok.

“This is not just something that just happened overnight. This is something we’ve been working on for quite a while,” said Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), leaders of the select committee on China, had previously introduced another bill targeting TikTok that was stymied amid constitutional concerns. The Commerce panel greenlit the bill led by Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi 50-0 last week, advancing it just two days after its introduction, an unheard-of pace for legislation targeting tech companies.

Other members, including Krishnamoorthi and fellow Democrat Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), said the platform’s role in online discussions over the Hamas attack on Israel helped galvanize support. “After October 7, we watched all the misinformation be spread around,” Moskowitz said.

Lawmakers have accused the platform of fueling anti-Israeli sentiment. A Washington Post report last year found that hashtags associated with both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian sentiment are often used to criticize those movements, while TikTok’s opaque algorithms and metrics make determining the magnitude of activity difficult.

It’s not immediately clear what information about the company’s practices the closed-door session surfaced, and other members said they have significant concerns about the bill’s implications on privacy, competition and free speech.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized the chamber’s “rushed” consideration of the bill, which she opposed, saying she had not heard any adequate rationale for it.

“Rarely do I see any legislation move with this urgency,” she said in an interview. “I am not really getting any sort of sufficient answer as to what is prompting the urgency here.”

Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said lawmakers should be focused instead on passing privacy safeguards for all companies. “To start threatening to shut down platforms when we can’t even get our act together to get a federal privacy law passed is a little crazy,” he said.

Lawmakers have tried and failed for years to pass legislation to crack down on tech companies’ privacy and content moderation practices and alleged anti-competitive abuses.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House antitrust committee spent more than two years investigating and crafting legislation aimed at barring major tech companies from squelching competitors before marking up any legislation in 2021.

Senators, meanwhile, held numerous hearings on child online safety after a Facebook whistleblower stepped forward with allegations of company wrongdoing, and it took until the next year for a key panel to adopt a pair of proposals aimed at expanding guardrails for kids.

The latest House salvo against TikTok has moved much faster, and is the first time a chamber of Congress has approved legislation that could lead to the platform’s prohibition throughout the country.

TikTok mounted an aggressive push to thwart the House’s consideration of the measure over the past week, directly urging U.S. users to contact their representatives and oppose it in a pop-up message. The tactic inundated congressional offices with calls, at times forcing offices to shut off their phones. But it also riled up House leaders, who accused the company of wielding its vast power in a bid to upend the congressional debate over its future.

“That actually proved the point to a lot of members who may have been on the fence before,” Gallagher said Wednesday of TikTok’s ability to shape public opinion. TikTok last week said it was “shameful members of Congress would complain about hearing from their own constituents.”

Some Silicon Valley figures cheered on the legislation, reflecting the growing hostility toward China across the industry. Keith Rabois, managing director of Khosla Ventures and one of the most prominent Republicans in the tech industry, posted on X that he would “never fund any Republican candidates or leadership PACs (or the NRSC) run by Republicans who vote against the TikTok legislation.”

The bill lacks a companion measure in the Senate, where lawmakers have pushed for competing approaches for months to tackle concerns over apps viewed as security threats. The dynamics signal a tougher and probably slower path to passage there.

But its Senate outlook looks rosier after Wednesday’s sweeping House vote, with the two leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee putting their heavyweight support behind the legislation.

“We were encouraged by today’s strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, and look forward to working together to get this bill passed through the Senate and signed into law,” Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the chair and vice chair of the committee, said in a joint statement.

Lawmakers have floated numerous other approaches, including a yet-to-be-unveiled bill from Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and separate proposals from both Warner and Rubio, but none appeared to gain broad support until House leaders released their latest proposal last week.

The House measure combines aspects of past bills, explicitly targeting TikTok and its parent company while giving the federal government a new mechanism to ban apps with ties to nations viewed as foreign adversaries. If ByteDance declined to spin off TikTok, the bill would require app store providers to stop carrying the platform, which could effectively shutter its U.S. operations.

Biden and his campaign opponent, former president Donald Trump, have taken conflicting public stances on the matter, with Biden endorsing it and Trump speaking out against the prospect of a ban.

But while the House quickly voted out the measure, in the Senate a single member could block swift consideration on the floor by placing a hold on it, a step Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has already indicated he’s considering.

Another hurdle: The two senators most likely to control its fate have yet to rally around the bill or agree to take it up.

Cantwell, whose panel would probably need to sign off on the new bill, told reporters Tuesday that they “definitely want to work with our colleagues and see if we can get something that will hold up in court.” Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a brief statement after Wednesday’s vote, saying, “The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House.”

Ellen Nakashima, Will Oremus, Drew Harwell and Elizabeth Dwoskin contributed to this report.