The US House Of Representatives' Energy And Trade Committee Will Determine The Fate Of TikTok

JAKARTA - The US House of Representatives' Energy and Trade Committee on Thursday 7 March is expected to vote on legislation that gives ByteDance from China six months to break away from the short video app TikTok or face bans in the US.

The committee's approval will prepare a vote by the US House of Representatives, which is the first significant momentum for the US to tighten scrutiny of TikTok, which has about 170 million users in the US.

Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the Republic of China's special committee of the House of Representatives, and Democratic Representative Raja Krishna Moorthi, on Tuesday 5 March introduced legislation to address national security concerns raised by China's ownership of the app.

"TikTok can still exist and people can do whatever they want in it as long as there is a split," Gallagher told reporters on Wednesday. He urged US ByteDance investors to support sales. "This is not a ban - think of this as an operation designed to remove tumors and thus save patients in the process."

The bill will give ByteDance 165 days to release TikTok; otherwise app stores operated by Apple, Google, and others cannot legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to apps controlled by ByteDance.

"This bill is a direct ban on TikTok, no matter how hard the author tries to disguise it," a company spokesman said. "This legislation will trampled on the rights of First Amendments out of 170 million US citizens and seized 5 million small businesses from a platform."

The White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, on Wednesday praised the proposal, saying that the government wants to "see this bill completed so that it can reach the presidential table" because it supports the handling of "threats posed by certain technology services operating in the United States."

This application is popular and getting legislative approval in the election year may be difficult. Last month, Democratic President Joe Biden's re-election campaign joined TikTok.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who proposed a separate bill last year to give the White House new powers over TikTok, said he "has some concerns about the constitutionality of the approach that mentions certain companies" but will "examine closely this bill."

A US judge in late November blocked the ban on the first state-level TikTok in Montana, saying it violated the user's right to freedom of speech.

The United States (CFIUS) Foreign Investment Committee led by the US Treasury Department in March 2023 demanded Chinese owners TikTok to sell their shares or face a possible ban on apps, Reuters reported, but administration took no action.

TikTok says they have never and will not share US user data with the Chinese government.

The new bill aims to strengthen legal authorities to deal with TikTok. Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, tried to ban TikTok in 2020 but was blocked by US courts.