House ‘Swipes Up’ on Bill to Ban TikTok | April 2024

April 2024 | Volume 15, Issue 9

Read the full article from MSNBC.

According to the article, White House national security adviser John Kirby recently said that the Senate should swiftly advance a bill that would force Chinese technology company ByteDance to sell TikTok. The bill passed in the House with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Legislative Momentum

"We're glad the House took it up. And we urge the Senate to move swiftly on this," Kirby said.

"We want to see divestiture from this Chinese company because we are concerned, as every American ought to be concerned, about data security and what ByteDance and what the Chinese Communist Party could do with the information that they can glean off of Americans use of the application."

The White House's call to action comes as the Senate slow-walks the bill, requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company or face a ban in the U.S.

The bill passed in a 352-65 House vote. President Joe Biden, currently on TikTok for his reelection campaign, said he would sign the bill if it passed Congress.

Fueled by the momentum in their chamber's vote, eager House members want the bill to move forward more quickly.

"Mike (Gallagher) and I have had conversations, very positive ones, with different members of the Senate, who are very interested in this bill and who were very surprised by the size or the margin of the overwhelming bipartisan support in the House," said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-chairs the special House committee on China relations.

However, the Senate has a busy session ahead as Capitol Hill scrambles to negotiate a budget resolution for the remaining six appropriations bills that are due to expire soon, which would trigger a partial government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear that he is in no rush on the TikTok bill. He said that he "will review" the text without committing to a vote timeline. Schumer has previously expressed support for selling TikTok to a U.S. company.

Plus, some upper chamber lawmakers have dragged their heels over the bill rather than wholly embracing it.

For example, senators like Bill Cassidy and Ben Cardin have offered tentative support for the measure but hesitated to commit to a yes vote.

"I'm certainly sympathetic to it. Let's see how it goes through the Senate process. But yes, I think we need to put guardrails regarding the ownership of TikTok," said Cardin in a recent media interview.

The TikTok bill has also sparked debate outside of Capitol Hill. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has voiced his opposition to a potential TikTok ban, a reversal from his stance years ago when he was advocating for the ban when he served as president.

"Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people," Trump recently said.

Discussion Questions

1. As the article indicates, TikTok is a social media platform currently owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, and the main thrust of the bill is to compel the company to sell TikTok to investors outside of China to continue to do business in the United States. Does it strike you as unusual that through this bill, the United States is attempting to force such a sale? Explain your response.
   This is an opinion question, so student responses may vary. In your author’s opinion, although the move may make political sense, it may not make practical sense considering TikTok’s well-established foothold in the U.S. and global markets.
   
   

   Consider the following statistics (particularly the U.S. statistics) from https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users:

   
   (1) TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users.
   (2) There are 5.3 billion internet users, and 23.02 percent use ByteDance’s video-sharing service.
   (3) TikTok has been downloaded more than 4.1 billion times (and counting).
   (4) Considering it was only released in 2016, TikTok was the 6th-ranked social media app in 2021. TikTok has surpassed X (Twitter), Telegram, Reddit, Pinterest, and Snapchat in monthly active users.
   (5) ByteDance reportedly reached a valuation of $223.5 billion in 2023.
   (6) TikTok had a 1157.76 percent increase in its global user base between January 2018 and July 2020; the U.S. saw a 1239.29 percent user growth rate between 2018 and 2023.
   (7) Monthly U.S. TikTok users have now passed 150 million, equaling nearly half of America’s population.
   (8) Americans 18 and over are estimated to spend 55.8 minutes per day on TikTok.
   
   Ask students the following question: Is it reasonable to expect a well-established and successful company to divest itself of a market it has spent considerable time and effort developing? Further, is it reasonable to risk the U.S. presence of a social media platform that is so ubiquitously used by U.S. consumers?
2. Does it concern you that this legislation, should it become law, might impact international trade and political relations with China? Explain your response.
   This is an opinion question, so student responses may vary. In your author’s opinion, there is a real risk that the legislation, if enacted, will significantly and negatively impact international trade and political relations with China. Although it is easy to summarily downplay U.S.-Chinese relations, it is worthy to consider that our relations with China have been carefully and methodically developed over decades (in modern times, beginning with then-president Richard Nixon’s strategic and diplomatic visit to China in 1972 to establish more positive relations between the two countries). The reality is that the U.S. and China have a mutually dependent and significant trade relationship and that political ties are important if for no other reason than to avoid a potential war between two (or more) global superpowers.
3. TikTok allows users to create, share, and discover short-form videos. Its videos are a form of expression. How, if at all, should the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s “Free Speech” Clause be considered in relation to the proposed legislation? Explain your response.
   The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, in pertinent part, that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…” This is commonly referred to as the Free Speech Clause.
   
   In your author’s opinion, since TikTok is a form of expression, the Free Speech Clause is definitely “in play” in this case. However, there are other forums for expression, including (but not limited to) other social media platforms. Further, the U.S. Congress could justify the ban on TikTok in this country without ByteDance divestiture of U.S. operations by arguing that TikTok is a national security threat.