Congress takes a hard swing at TikTok

GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer, has been trying for years to curb TikTok’s influence in the United States. Not just because he – a father of two young daughters – is worried about its influence on teens. But also because he’s made it his mission to take on the Chinese Communist Party and what he sees as its efforts to undermine American democracy. 

To the Wisconsin Republican, this social media app – whose parent company is based in Beijing – is a Trojan horse. He argues it allows a foreign adversary to pit Americans against each other, meddle in U.S. elections, and influence 170 million U.S. users with Chinese propaganda.

Still, initial efforts to address these concerns seemed to go nowhere. When former President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok, he “ran into a legal buzz saw,” Representative Gallagher recalled Tuesday outside the House chamber. Mr. Gallagher put forward a different bill that stalled. Six months ago, the effort looked dead, he said.

But quietly, Mr. Gallagher, who last year was put in charge of a new special House committee on China, was working with his Democratic counterpart Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and the White House. Together, they shaped a new bill that was narrow and targeted, and that they believe will stand up to legal scrutiny. It would force TikTok and any other websites and apps controlled by a foreign adversary to be sold from their parent companies in order to continue operating in the U.S. 

“We were able to learn from our own previous mistakes, and then work collaboratively across the parties and across the branches,” said Mr. Gallagher, who is leaving Congress at the end of this term. 

In a show of bipartisan momentum rarely seen in Washington these days, the bill, which was only unveiled last week, unanimously sailed through the Energy and Commerce Committee. Wednesday it passed the full House with overwhelming support, 352-65.

But while President Joe Biden said he would sign the bill into law, it still faces an uncertain future in the Senate amid intense lobbying from TikTok. Critics say that by prohibiting app stores and internet providers from making TikTok available so long as it remains under foreign ownership, the bill could also run into the kind of legal challenges on First Amendment grounds that have halted other such efforts – including a ban by the state of Montana.

The high-stakes effort could have a direct impact on everything from young Americans’ engagement in politics to the increasingly fraught U.S.-China relationship. It also may set the tone for how Congress addresses growing concerns about social media in general – particularly its influence on impressionable young Americans, many of whom now get their news primarily from TikTok. Lawmakers say they’re well aware of the risks, given that the bill could potentially force the demise of a popular platform used by about a quarter of American voters if TikTok’s parent company refuses to divest.

“Most of us shudder at the thought that we’re going to empower a federal government to make those decisions” says GOP Rep. Jay Obernolte of California, the only member of Congress with an advanced degree in artificial intelligence. “But we also have concerns about a substantial news source being weaponized by a foreign competitor in ways that are very, very dangerous for our society.”

The bill is not without its detractors, particularly in the Senate, where the chamber’s slower pace could give lobbyists, users, and critics more time to erode support. Lawmakers opposed to it say the House bill was rushed, unfairly singled out TikTok from other social media platforms, and didn’t adequately articulate the national security concerns to the public – including the more than 5 million small-business owners who rely on the app.  

“I have serious questions surrounding the urgency and the speed with which this passed through the House,” says New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a “no” vote who says she didn’t receive satisfying answers from colleagues on either side of the aisle. She also raised concerns about Congress justifying legislation based on classified information, saying that “the American people deserve, at least in broad brushstrokes, to know” the nature and scope of the purported national security threat. 

TikTok, initially caught off guard by the bipartisan momentum for the bill, has launched a major pressure campaign to kill it, with high-profile lobbyists working both sides of the aisle. Last week, the app began urging its users to call their members of Congress – a push that led to a flood of phone calls to Capitol Hill from outraged teenagers.

After the House vote, a group of teens who had been in the public gallery seemed confused about what, exactly, had happened. “Does this mean TikTok will be banned?” one asked glumly.  

Mr. Trump, who previously had called TikTok a national security threat, recently reversed course and said the bill could further consolidate the power of Facebook, which he called an “enemy of the People.” Critics noted that the former president and presumptive Republican nominee changed his position after a meeting with Jeff Yass, a key financier of the conservative PAC Club for Growth and a billionaire investor whose personal stake in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is estimated at three-quarters of his net worth. 

Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, who also worked for months behind the scenes to get this bill across the finish line, says a marathon hearing she conducted with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew a year ago was a turning point. She says that for both Republicans and Democrats, it exposed the company’s lack of transparency and honesty regarding its relationship with its Chinese parent company and the extent to which it is beholden to Beijing.

“There was this sense that we need to act in order to protect the United States of America from what is really a tool of the Chinese Communist Party,” she says. 

The bill mentions only TikTok by name, but it opens the way for the president to prevent any website or app controlled by a foreign adversary – defined as China, Iran, Russia, or North Korea – from operating in the U.S. It would require ByteDance to sell TikTok within 180 days, a prospect that has raised antitrust concerns since prospective buyers are likely to be deep-pocketed tech companies. 

A key U.S. concern about TikTok is how much information the app collects – including biometric faceprints and voiceprints, according to the company’s own website – and how it might be shared. To address those concerns, the company has already spent $1.5 billion to sequester U.S. user data, a TikTok executive wrote to Representatives Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi this week, warning that divestment could make user data less safe. 

On March 7, as the Energy and Commerce Committee was holding a classified briefing on the legislation, TikTok sent users a pop-up saying the app was at risk of being shut down in the U.S. and, after asking for their ZIP code, directing them to call their representative. 

Representative Krishnamoorthi half-joked that congressional offices were flooded with callers asking things like, “What is Congress? What is a congressman? Give me my TikTok back.”

Initially, there was uncertainty as to how strong the Democratic support for the bill would be. But after the classified briefing from national security officials and the flood of calls from TikTok users, the committee voted 50-0 in favor. 

“It boggles the mind that TikTok would turn around and demonstrate that their app can be politically weaponized,” says Representative Obernolte, who sits on the committee. “I guarantee you the vote would not have been unanimous if they had not done that.”