The bill against Tiktok is expected to pass in the House of Representatives, but run into difficulties in the Senate. Previous attempts to restrict the use of Tiktok have failed.
The US House of Representatives will vote today on a bill that could ban the popular video app Tiktok from being used in the country.
If passed, the law would oblige Tiktok’s owner, China’s Bytedance, to sell its US operations within six months. Otherwise, the authorities would ban the use of the app with a Chinese background in the United States.
The legislative initiative is expected to get behind the necessary two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives, i.e. the lower house of Congress.
However, the initiative must also be approved in the upper house of the parliament, the senate, where its passage is less likely.
Several senators are of the opinion that banning Tiktok would be against the freedom of expression guaranteed by the country’s constitution.
– I am not in favor of Congress trying to take away 170 million Americans from the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, Republican Senator Rand Paul told the Washington Post newspaper.
Defending Tiktok is one of the few things that unites some left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans.
– All social media platforms must be treated equally. Raising Tiktok to the tip of the stick in this way is dangerous and against Takuu’s freedom of expression, Democratic representative Robert Garcia said at a rally for Tiktok in Washington.
China is suspected of using Tiktok for hybrid influence
American politicians want to intervene in the activities of Tiktok because it is believed to be closely connected to the Chinese regime, which is using it, among other things, to influence the US election.
Tiktok has denied the allegations and says it has no ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.
In the United States, the authorities have warned several times about Tiktok and the Chinese government’s connections, and how the video application can be used for hybrid influence.
However, previous attempts to restrict the use of Tiktok have failed because no clear evidence of the security threat it poses has been able to be shown, the Washington Post writes.
In 2020, then-Pres Donald Trump tried to ban Tiktok in the US but failed.