The House passed a bill binding a potential TikTok ban on Israel and Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed a bill Saturday that will ban TikTok within the United States if the favored social media platform’s Chinese owner doesn’t sell its shares inside a 12 months, nevertheless it doesn’t expect the app to vanish any time soon.

House Republicans’ decision to incorporate TikTok in a larger foreign aid package, a priority for President Joe Biden amid broad congressional support for Ukraine and Israel, hastened the ban after an earlier version stalled within the Senate. A standalone bill with a shorter six-month sales deadline passed the House in March with an awesome bipartisan vote after each Democrats and Republicans raised national security concerns in regards to the app’s owner, Chinese tech company ByteDance Ltd.

The modified measure, passed by a 360-58 vote, now goes to the Senate after negotiations that prolonged the deadline to sell the corporate to nine months, with an extra three months possible if the sale is pending.

Legal challenges could extend that timeline even further. The company has indicated it’s going to likely go to court in an try and block the bill if it passes, arguing it could deprive hundreds of thousands of app users of their First Amendment rights.

TikTok lobbied hard against the laws, urging the app’s 170 million U.S. users – a lot of them young – to contact Congress and express their opposition. But the ferocity of the response has angered lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where there’s widespread concern about Chinese threats to the U.S. and where few members use the platform themselves.

“We will not stop fighting and supporting you,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video posted on the platform last month and addressed to the app’s users. “We will continue to do everything we can, including exercising our rights, to protect this incredible platform we have built with you.”

The bill’s fast track through Congress is unusual since it targets one company and because Congress has taken a hands-off approach to tech regulation for a long time. Lawmakers have didn’t act despite efforts to, amongst other things, protect children online, protect user privacy and make firms more accountable for content posted on their platforms. However, the TikTok ban reflects widespread concerns amongst lawmakers about China.

Members of each side, together with intelligence officials, feared that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance handy over US user data or encourage the corporate to suppress or amplify TikTok content favorable to its interests. TikTok has denied claims that it might be used as a tool of the Chinese government and said it doesn’t share US user data with Chinese authorities.

The U.S. government has not publicly presented evidence showing that TikTok shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or tinkered with the corporate’s popular algorithm that influences what Americans see.

The company has reasonable grounds to imagine that the legal motion might be successful, given some success in previous legal disputes involving its U.S. operations. In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law that will have banned TikTok statewide after the corporate and five content creators using the platform were sued.

In 2020, federal courts blocked an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump banning TikTok after the corporate sued on the grounds that the order violated free speech and due process rights. His administration negotiated a deal that resulted in US corporations Oracle and Walmart taking large stakes in TikTok. The sale never materialized for a variety of reasons; one in every of them was China, which imposed stricter export controls on its technology suppliers.

Dozens of states and the federal government have imposed bans on TikTok on government devices. Texas’ ban was challenged last 12 months by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, which argued in a lawsuit that the policy impedes academic freedom since it extends to public universities. In December, a federal judge ruled within the state’s favor.

The application was supported by organizations comparable to the American Civil Liberties Union. “Congress cannot strip away the rights of the more than 170 million Americans who use TikTok to express themselves, engage in political activities and access information from around the world,” said Jenna Leventoff, a lawyer for the group.

Since mid-March, TikTok has spent $5 million on TV ads opposing the laws, in keeping with AdImpact, an ad tracking company. The ads featured quite a few content creators, including a nun, praising the platform’s positive impact on their lives and arguing that a ban would trample on the First Amendment. The company also encouraged its users to contact Congress, and some lawmakers received profanity-laced calls.

“It is unlucky that the House of Representatives is using the quilt of necessary foreign and humanitarian aid to once more push through a ban bill that will trample on the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shut down a platform that contributes $24 billion annually to American economy,” said Alex Haurek, company spokesman.

California Democrat Ro Khanna voted against the laws. He said he believed there might have been less restrictive ways of prosecuting the corporate that will not have led to an outright ban or threatened free speech.

“I don’t think it will be well received,” Khanna said. “It’s a sign that the bypass is out of touch with where voters are.”

Nadya Okamoto, a content creator who has about 4 million followers on TikTok, said she is talking to other creators who feel “so much anger and anxiety” in regards to the bill and its impact on their lives. The 26-year-old, whose company “August” sells menstrual products and is thought for promoting the destigmatization of periods, makes most of her income from TikTok.

“This will have real consequences,” she added.