House votes to force TikTok to sell or face US ban

TikTok is a "valuable propaganda tool" the Chinese Communist Party can exploit, said one lawmaker

(Image credit: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

published 14 March 2024

What happened

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill to ban TikTok on national security grounds unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells the app to a non-Chinese company.

Who said what

TikTok is a "valuable propaganda tool" the Chinese Communist Party can exploit, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said, and its in-app push alert to lobby lawmakers against the bill is "just a small taste of how the CCP weaponizes applications it controls" to "further its agenda." "It's a ban based on zero evidence," TikTok spokesperson Jodi Seth said.

The commentary

TikTok's security threat has "far less to do with who owns it" than "who writes the code and algorithms," the opaque ByteDance-owned "magic sauce" that makes "TikTok tick," The New York Times said. China will not sell its algorithm.

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What next?

The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the legislation. But Former President Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok when in office, reversed course last week and opposed any ban after pressure from a Republican megadonor with a $15 billion stake in ByteDance.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.