By Antoinette Radford, Brian Fung and Aditi Sangal, CNN
From CNN's Lauren Fox
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement after the House passed its bill that could ban TikTok. He remained uncommitted to the next steps in the Senate.
“The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” Schumer said.
He would not specifically lay out what the next steps would be when asked yesterday. But that was before the vote passed in the House.
From CNN's Clare Duffy
If you’re a TikTok fanatic worried about how you’re going to stay connected to the world after a bill that could ban the app passed the House of Representatives Wednesday … don’t panic just yet.
Many of the roughly 170 million Americans who use the app have raised concerns that banning TikTok could mean doing away with a platform that represents much more than a platform where young people can follow the latest updates about the Princess of Wales.
It’s where they go to find connection, get entertained, seek information and earn a living. Some of those TikTokkers phoned their representatives in recent days to urge them to vote “no” on the bill, after the app alerted users to the potential ban.
There are other platforms available for TikTok users — nearly every major social media company has spent the past several years trying to mimic the app’s popular formula of snappy, shortform videos combined with a powerful recommendation algorithm that keeps users scrolling. However, shifting a loyal audience from one platform to another is easier said than done.
But TikTok will not be disappearing from Americans’ phones anytime soon.
The bill faces numerous hurdles to being signed into law and will almost certainly face legal challenges if it is. And if the bill becomes law, the question remains whether an American buyer would step in to save the day (if ByteDance is willing to divest the popular platform).
Read more about how likely it is that the bill could become law here.
From CNN's Matt Stiles
The US House on Wednesday approved legislation that could ban TikTok in the United States over concerns about the video sharing platform’s Chinese ownership.
The bill, which passed on a bipartisan 352-65 vote, would require the app to part ways with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, within 180 days or face a ban in American app stores.
The measure is now expected to move to the US Senate, where it faces an uncertain future. President Joe Biden has said he would be prepared to sign the bill if it passes both chambers.
Take a look at how each member of the House voted here and below is a breakdown of the vote.
From CNN's Brian Fung
TikTok misread years of signals from politicians that they intended to ban the app, according to Paul Barrett, deputy director of New York University's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
"Faced with persistent bipartisan suspicion in the US, ByteDance and the Chinese government should have read the political signals more astutely and spun off TikTok as a stand-alone American company," Barrett said.
"A broad U.S. ban would inhibit Americans from using TikTok to express themselves — an outcome that would limit free speech and make no one happy," he continued.
More context: Lawmakers supportive of the bill have argued TikTok poses a national security threat because the Chinese government could use its intelligence laws against ByteDance, forcing it to hand over the data of US app users.
TikTok has called the legislation an attack on the constitutional right to freedom of expression for its users.
From CNN's Morgan Rimmer and Kristin Wilson
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise celebrated the passage of the House’s TikTok bill, and downplayed concerns that going after a popular application could hurt Republicans in November.
The Republican from Louisiana said young people did not recognize how much of their data was at risk from the app and said the bill would give them extra layers of protection.
"This bill protects those families, those young people, and lets them still use the application that they enjoy. So it's a win for families across America, and it's a long time coming,” he continued.
Scalise said he believes the overwhelming support for the legislation in the House will help ease its passage in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hasn’t committed to taking up the House’s version of the bill.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said not only does he not want a ban on the social media platform, but that the legislation that was passed doesn’t do that.
“It's now appropriate for the Senate to evaluate the merits of the legislation. I don't support a ban on TikTok. The legislation did not ban TikTok. It's simply a divestiture of TikTok so that this social media platform can be owned by an American company that would protect the data and the privacy of the American consumer from the latent foreign interests, like the Chinese Communist Party,” the Democrat from New York said, repeating several time his opposition to an outright ban.
From CNN's Clare Foran, Manu Raju and Sam Fossum
GOP Reps. Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene both told CNN that their decision to vote against the TikTok bill was not because former President Donald Trump signaled his opposition.
Greene told CNN that she didn’t speak to Trump about the bill and voted against it based on her own conclusions, saying, “He has his opinion on the bill and he can voice it. It doesn’t mean that we’re all robots.”
She said that this bill does not effectively protect Americans’ data or protect national security from China, saying a far more comprehensive approach would be needed to deal with both issues. She also raised concerns over who would buy TikTok.
Mace similarly told Manu her vote was not about Trump’s opposition, saying that she's "been against this from the very beginning before anyone else weighed in. It’s the libertarian in me. It’s not the role of government to ban apps from the app store. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that."
Explaining why she voted against it, Mace said she thought the bill was not constitutionally sound. She said no one could show her evidence that China has taken American data and said there needs to be a broader conversation about protecting consumer data from foreign adversaries.
Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Don Bacon pushed back against the criticism that a bill which could ban TikTok in the United States is stifling freedom of speech, arguing that the purpose of the legislation that passed the House this morning is to force TikTok’s Chinese-based parent company to divest the company.
From CNN's Haley Talbot
House Speaker Mike Johnson urged the Senate to approve the House-passed bill that could ban TikTok in the US in a statement Wednesday.
"Apps like TikTok allow the Chinese Communist Party to push harmful content to our youth and engage in malign activities, such as harvesting the location, purchasing habits, contacts, and sensitive data of Americans. Today’s bipartisan vote demonstrates Congress’ opposition to Communist China’s attempts to spy on and manipulate Americans, and signals our resolve to deter our enemies," Johnson said in a statement.
"I urge the Senate to pass this bill and send it to the President so he can sign it into law," he said.
The legislation's fate is less than clear in the Senate, where there is no companion bill.
From CNN's Brian Fung
The top US senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee praised Wednesday's House vote.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the panel's chair, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, its top Republican, vowed to collaborate in a bipartisan manner to get the bill to President Joe Biden's desk.
“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," the pair of lawmakers said.
"We were encouraged by today’s strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, and look forward to working together to get this bill passed through the Senate and signed into law," they continued.
From CNN's Antoinette Radford
A US TikTok ban could set a “radical” precedent for how social media is regulated worldwide, Dr. Georgios Samaras, an assistant professor in public policy at King's College London, says.
A bill that could ban the app passed the House 352-65 on Wednesday, although it's unclear what the fate of the measure will be in the Senate. The bill would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform is spun off from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Speaking to CNN, Samaras said a ban would be a “bold political move” that could affect not just TikTok, but other social media platforms, too.
“It opens a path towards a very specific focus … Instead of regulating social media platforms, just getting rid of them.”
Already, TikTok has been restricted from government devices in several Western nations, including countries that are a part of the five eyes intelligence group – the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – and the European Commission and NATO employees.
“Anything is possible when it comes to seeing the reactions from other countries if the US show the way. Because this is going to be a first in the Western World,” Samaras added.
