The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has announced that The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act has successfully passed the U.S. House of Representatives. This Act mandates TikTok to divest from its parent company, ByteDance, which is linked to the CCP, or face a potential ban in the United States.
According to CNN, the House voted in favor of passing the bill, with only 15 Republicans and 50 Democrats voting against it. The bill aims to prevent the app from being available in U.S. app stores. Advocates of the bill argue that TikTok presents a national security risk due to fears that the Chinese government could leverage ByteDance's connections to access data of U.S. users. President Joe Biden has stated he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk, although it remains uncertain how the Senate will vote. Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) released a bipartisan joint statement: "We are united in our concern about the national security threat posed by TikTok – a platform with enormous power to influence and divide Americans whose parent company ByteDance remains legally required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party." Warner currently serves as the Senate Intelligence Committee chair.
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In a press release by the Select Committee on the CCP, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), ranking member of the committee, said: "So long as it is owned by ByteDance and thus required to collaborate with the CCP, TikTok poses critical threats to our national security. Our bipartisan legislation would protect American social media users by driving the divestment of foreign adversary-controlled apps to ensure that Americans are protected from digital surveillance and influence operations of regimes that could weaponize their personal data against them."
As reported by Federal Newswire, Adam Savit, director of China Policy Initiative for the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), and Royce Hood, policy analyst for AFPI's China Policy Initiative, authored a report outlining potential threats posed by TikTok. Savit and Hood say that TikTok "serves as an ingenious data harvesting weapon for the CCP disguised as a social media platform and has become a dominant force in American youth culture."
According to its website, the House Select Committee on the CCP employs bipartisan collaboration to address national security threats posed by the CCP.
