House passes bill that could lead to US ban of TikTok

The US House of Representatives voted Wednesday to pass a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban against TikTok, one of the world’s most popular social media apps. It’s not yet clear what the future of the bill will be in the Senate.

Here’s what you need to know about the vote and what may happen next:

CNN’s Clare Foran, Brian Fung and Haley Talbot contributed reporting to this post.

This story was updated with the response from TikTok CEO Shou Chew.

Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, the chair of a key Senate committee, is pursuing a different – and more complex – TikTok plan than the bill that passed the GOP-led House, the latest indication that cracking down on the popular app faces a convoluted path to President Joe Biden’s desk this election year. 

It’s also not clear if Democrats, who control the Senate and the White House, really have the will to take action against TikTok, which has 170 million users in the United States, many who are young voters who could be angered by a ban and may take it out on the many Democratic incumbents on the ballot this year.

There are now two main approaches being considered in the Senate, according to senators and aides involved in the issue. 

“The whole point here is you have a dilemma. You want free speech, but you also want the United States to have the ability to protect US citizens or US military from foreign actors who might be deleterious in what they are using as a tool of communication,” she said. 

Cantwell, whose committee would have the main jurisdiction over the issue, is still developing the proposal, a sign that it could take weeks or months to negotiate and take away from the political strength the House bill has after a big bipartisan vote in its favor.

It is “totally reasonable” to think that TikTok could complete a sale within six months if the bill were to pass in the Senate and is signed into law, according to a former top US antitrust regulator.

“Six months is a perfectly reasonable timeframe for a divestiture or forced sale. It happens all the time in the antitrust agencies,” Jon Leibowitz, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, told CNN.

It is possible the Chinese government could try to block a TikTok sale; officials said last year the country “firmly opposes” any forced sale of the company. In 2022, the country proposed new regulations governing the sale of social media algorithms to foreign buyers, a move that could give China an effective veto over a potential TikTok deal.

That could complicate and delay a TikTok divestiture, Leibowitz added.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions at the core of this divestiture legislation,” he said, “but I actually think the six months is pretty reasonable. Most antitrust attorneys or corporate attorneys who work on divestiture think it’s a pretty fair timeframe.”

Remember: The bill that passed in the House Wednesday would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is spun off from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

The bill would give ByteDance roughly five months to sell TikTok. If not divested by that time, it would be illegal for app store operators such as Apple and Google to make it available for download.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Senate lawmakers to take “swift action” on the TikTok bill just passed by the House.

“We want to see the Senate take swift action,” Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One Wednesday en route to Wisconsin.

President Joe Biden has previously come out in support of the bill, saying he would sign it if it reached his desk.

Jean-Pierre added that the White House does not expect the bill to affect the US-China relationship, even as Chinese officials warned this week that passage of the legislation would “backfire” on the United States.

“We are going to continue our work, you know, working with our relationship with China,” Jean-Pierre said. “That’s not going to stop. But the president has always been clear, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has always been clear: When it comes to our national security, when it comes to data that’s coming from Americans, we’re always going to make sure that we’re addressing those threats that we face.”

One potential stumbling block to a TikTok sale is that the market for social media services is highly concentrated, antitrust experts say.

That could make it hard for TikTok to find a buyer that US competition regulators could accept.

“Who’s going to buy it? That’s the real question,” said Gene Kimmelman, a former Justice Department antitrust official. “If it’s Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Meta, I just think you’re going to see substantial antitrust concern.”

All four of those tech giants have come under tremendous antitrust scrutiny in recent years, with the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission suing each of them for alleged violations of US competition law.

Both federal agencies have made a point of identifying ways that troves of personal data can give the largest tech platforms an anticompetitive edge.

TikTok could have an easier path selling to a company that hasn’t raised red flags with antitrust regulators, Kimmelman added.

With the passage of the TikTok bill in the House on Wednesday, this is the closest the United States has come to banning the social media platform on personal devices.

The next closest thing would be a Montana law that bans TikTok on personal devices within the state. That legislation would have taken effect on Jan. 1, but a federal judge blocked it from taking effect late last year.

The Montana law likely violates the First Amendment, wrote District Judge Donald Malloy at the time. The same decision highlighted a debate about whether Montana was impermissibly engaging in foreign policy, a job that is reserved for the federal government.

In a statement on Wednesday’s vote, TikTok said its attention would now shift to the Senate, where the fate of the legislation is unclear.

After the House’s dizzyingly fast passage of a bill that seemed to take TikTok by surprise, the company has more of an opportunity to block the legislation in the Senate.

“The Senate doesn’t move quickly,” wrote Paul Gallant, a policy analyst at the market research firm Cowen Inc., in a research note Wednesday afternoon. “The longer it takes, the more time for TikTok and its allies to win over senators.”

The 2024 election could make it difficult to pass legislation, Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, one of the bill’s architects, acknowledged to reporters Wednesday.

Even so, Gallant wrote, senators could try to tuck the bill into a must-pass defense spending bill toward the end of the year, after the election.

“We continue to see passage of a TikTok ban bill in 2024 as more likely than not,” Gallant wrote. “That would set the stage for a one to two year court fight on First Amendment grounds.”

Earlier Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said only that the chamber would review the House bill when it reaches his chamber.

President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill if it makes it to his desk.

Kahlil Greene, a self-described “Gen Z historian” whose TikTok videos on Black history reach more than 640,000 followers, told CNN Wednesday that the House vote carries echoes of some of the darkest times in the country’s past.

In an interview, Greene compared the effort to clamp down on a foreign-owned app to the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s, which saw a wide range of Americans fall under government suspicion amid fears of communist infiltration.

“It just seems like very icky territory,” he said, “censoring under the threat of national security, which has oftentimes been the way that you can censor and, like, really take away American freedoms — whether it be the Patriot Act, or the Red Scare. It’s this idea that communist entities and foreign entities are taking over.”

The US government has not been persuasive enough about the need for restrictions specifically targeting TikTok, Greene said, and has not formulated a solution that protects Americans’ constitutional rights.

“I’m really concerned with the government banning TikTok, especially in an election year,” he said, “and also hypocritically, especially when they are using it so much and are continuing to use it for their campaign purposes. It’s like, ‘TikTok can be used when it benefits the American government, but when it starts creating dissent, and novel public opinion around issues that have been set in stone in American politics, then it becomes a problem.’ That’s my concern.”

House lawmakers are divided on the value of a classified briefing held this week intended to get them up to speed on TikTok’s alleged national security risks.

“I went to the briefing yesterday, the top secret briefing, it was vacuous,” said California Republican Rep. John Duarte, who voted against the bill today.. “There was no specific information given in that briefing that was well founded evidence and specific about what TikTok or anybody else was doing.”

Michigan Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee, who voted for the bill, described it as a judgment call.

“This is one of those arguments where you can push either argument. For me, at the end of the day, it really came down to whether or not we can take some action to try to deter the malign influence of the PRC,” Kildee said. He added: “I can’t go through a lot of what I have learned. I can just tell you they are legitimate, they are real … I understand the public concerns about this and I know it sounds like a talking point.”

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, one of the bill’s original leading cosponsors, acknowledged some uncertainty surrounding the legislation’s future in the Senate.

“Obviously with the Senate, you know, that’s 100 senators that are going to have an opinion on this thing,” Gallagher said. “So obviously, you’ve got to balance that against the need to do something expeditiously. Because everything gets harder the closer you get to an election.”

Former President Donald Trump’s public opposition to a TikTok ban may have swayed some House Republicans, according to one GOP lawmaker who voted for the bill.

“Seems like it, seeing who spoke, seems like maybe a little,” said Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw. “I don’t know. I think they’re getting some bad advice from somebody, and some bad legal interpretations of what the bill actually does. I mean, there were a lot of counter arguments that frankly just made no sense at all. So I don’t think – I think it was a misunderstanding of the bill by some people. It’s ok, we disagree.”

What other Republicans are saying: Earlier Wednesday, GOP Reps. Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene both told CNN that their decision to vote against the TikTok bill was not because 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.” 

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

In a statement on Wednesday’s House vote, TikTok said its attention would now shift to the Senate, where the fate of the legislation is unclear.

In its response, it blasted House lawmakers’ fast-tracking of the bill and their decision to hold a closed-door briefing for members last week that highlighted the app’s national security concerns.

“This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: it’s a ban,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. “We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”

House lawmakers have passed a bill that could ban TikTok for users in the US.

It’s not yet clear what the fate of the measure will be in the Senate.

The vote was 352-65 with 15 Republicans and 50 Democrats voting in opposition. One Democrat voted present.

Passage of the bill through the GOP-controlled House comes as former President Donald Trump has signaled opposition to a ban.

The bill would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is spun off from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

This is a breaking news story, we will bring you the latest updates as we get them.

The House passed a bill Wednesday that could ban the video-based social media app TikTok, but the legislation’s fate is less than clear in the US Senate, where there is no companion bill.

A bill needs to pass in both the House and the Senate before it would be sent to the president to be signed into law.

The Democratic chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Maria Cantwell, has made no firm commitment to advance the proposal.

“I will be talking to my Senate and House colleagues to try to find a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties,” Cantwell said in a statement to CNN last week.

And on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wouldn’t commit to holding a vote on the House bill.

“Let’s see what the House does. I’ll have to consult and intend to consult with my relevant committee chairman to see what their views would be,” he said.

Some background on attempts to limit the app: Last year, Senate lawmakers proposed legislation clamping down on TikTok but triggered concerns that it could give the executive branch too much power.

Efforts to ban TikTok date back to the Trump administration, which used a series of executive orders to try to force app stores not to offer TikTok and to compel ByteDance to spin off the company.

Those efforts also stalled amid legal challenges, though it led TikTok to engage in negotiations with the US government about how it could secure Americans’ personal data. Those talks are ongoing, even as TikTok has moved to store US user data on US-based servers controlled by the tech giant Oracle.

Lawmakers who support Wednesday’s bill say China’s intelligence laws could allow it to force ByteDance — TikTok’s parent company — to hand over TikTok’s user data. That data could allegedly be useful to China for identifying intelligence targets or engaging in disinformation campaigns.

“TikTok is owned by ByteDance. ByteDance is in China,” said Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw. “And when you’re in China, you have to do whatever the Chinese Communist Party says you have to do. That’s according to the national intelligence law passed in 2017. If they want you to spy for them, you will spy for them. That’s how that works.”

That characterization of China’s intelligence laws is broadly accurate, according to cybersecurity and China experts.

But, they add, the allegations about TikTok as a national security risk remain a hypothetical. The US government has not publicly detailed any specific claim that China has actually accessed TikTok user data.

Voting is underway on the House’s bill that could ban the video-based social media app TikTok.

The ban would pose a major challenge to one of the world’s most popular social media apps used by 170 million Americans, unless it parts ways with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

If successful, TikTok would have about five months to separate from ByteDance, or app stores across the US would be banned from hosting it on their platforms.

The vote is happening under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage, which means it is likely to pass with widespread bipartisan support.

It’s not yet clear what the fate of the measure will be in the Senate. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill if it makes it to his desk.

We’ll bring you the latest updates on the vote as we get them here.

CNN’s Clare Foran, Haley Talbot and Kristin Wilson contributed reporting to this post.

Even as House lawmakers debate a broader TikTok ban, the federal government and more than half of US states have already clamped down on the app on official devices.

A CNN analysis last year found that 33 states had taken action to restrict the app on government-owned electronics.

Government agencies are viewed as having more leeway to regulate devices under their direct control. But imposing restrictions on private citizens can raise First Amendment concerns.

Summer Lucille, a content creator with over 1.4 million followers on her @JuicyBodyGoddess TikTok account, said how lawmakers vote for the bill that could ban TikTok in the US would directly influence who she casts her ballot for in November.

“You are voting against my First Amendment and my way of freedom of speech; you are voting against my small business. You are voting against me getting a slice of my American pie. So I will have to say this will highly influence who I vote for,” she said in an interview on CNN. “Yes, TikTok is that important to me.”

The bill would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is spun off from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

It would give ByteDance roughly five months to sell TikTok. If not divested by that time, it would be illegal for app store operators such as Apple and Google to make it available for download.

Lucille said the social media platform “changed my life forever” and has attracted people from all over the US to visit her brick-and-mortar store.

When asked how her business would change if TikTok were owned by an American entity instead of a Chinese company, Lucille responded:

“I believe it would change the dynamics of TikTok. It would change the culture of TikTok. We will be limited to what we can say and limited what we can do, which is against the American way.”

She said she doesn’t have any concerns about possible Chinese government influence.

A floor debate over the TikTok legislation has now begun, marking a prelude to the eventual House vote expected at 10 a.m. ET.

Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, a lead co-sponsor of the bill and the ranking member of a House select committee on China, urged his colleagues to support the legislation.

Some lawmakers are announcing their position on the bill through videos posted on TikTok, meanwhile.

California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, published a video of a prior television appearance in which he advocated for a national data privacy law that would govern not just TikTok but all tech platforms.

“I will be voting NO on the bill to ban TikTok,” the caption on the video said.

New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman posted a TikTok video recorded from the halls of Congress and directly addressing the app’s users.

“My colleagues are trying to ban TikTok, which is crazy,” Bowman said in the video. “They’re doing it because of your pressure, because of your organizing, because of your good work.”

US intelligence officials cannot rule out the possibility that the Chinese government will use TikTok to influence the 2024 US elections, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers on Tuesday. 

Haines’ comments — in response to a question from a lawmaker during a House Intelligence Committee hearing — comes as US intelligence agencies raised concerns about the reported use of the TikTok in the 2022 US midterm elections in their Annual Threat Assessment report published on Monday. 

“TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022,” said the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), using an acronym for the Chinese government. 

Tuesday’s testimony before the House panel by senior US intelligence officials came ahead of a high-stakes vote on Wednesday when the Republican-controlled House is slated to consider a bill that would force TikTok to divest from Chinese parent firm ByteDance or face a nationwide ban. 

“We regularly take action against deceptive behavior, including covert influence networks throughout the world, and have been transparent in reporting them publicly,” a TikTok spokesperson told CNN. “TikTok has protected our platform through more than 150 elections globally and is continuing to work with electoral commissions, experts, and fact-checkers to safeguard our community during this historic election year.”

 US national security officials are preparing for a divisive 2024 US election in which multiple foreign adversaries — from China to Russia to Iran — could try to use social media platforms to interfere with or influence the vote.  

Former President Donald Trump has sent mixed messages about his stance on a potential TikTok ban.

When president, he supported calls to ban the app — but appears to have backed away from that stance.

In a post on Truth Social last week, Trump expressed opposition to a ban, arguing that if TikTok were out of the picture, Facebook would benefit. He said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was an “Enemy of the People.”

In a Monday interview with CNBC, Trump said it was a “tough decision” whether to ban TikTok and argued that getting rid of it would benefit Meta, adding that he thought “Facebook has been very bad for our country.”

Trump said he thought TikTok posed a national security threat to the US but added, “You have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies too.”

China said Wednesday that banning TikTok would backfire on the US.

The comments by China’s foreign ministry came hours before a House vote on legislation that would force Tiktok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the short video platform or face being banned in the US, where it boasts over 170 million users.

Lawmakers who want to see the bill passed argue it poses a national security threat because China could use its intelligence laws against ByteDance and force it to hand over US user data.

“Even though the US has not found evidence on how TikTok endangers its national security, it has never stopped going after TikTok,” ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Wednesday.

Wang accused the US of “resorting to acts of bullying” when it could not succeed in fair competitions, saying such practice would disrupt market operations, undermine investor confidence and sabotage the global economic and trade order.

As House lawmakers prepared to vote, TikTok encouraged users to call their representatives with a full-screen notification about the legislation.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew has tried to schedule 11th-hour meetings with members of Congress. The company sent letters to two lawmakers on Monday challenging their characterizations of TikTok’s call-to-action campaign as “offensive” and “patently false.”

TikTok has said that banning the app would harm 5 million businesses that rely on the platform.

CNN’s Brian Fung contributed reporting to this post.

The House will vote on a bill that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban.

The bill would give the app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, five months to sell TikTok. If not divested in time, it would be illegal for app stores to make it available for download — affecting 170 million American users.

Lawmakers who want to see the bill passed argue it poses a national security threat because China could use its intelligence laws against ByteDance and force it to hand over US user data.

Hours before the House vote, China warned the bill would backfire on the US.

Some House Democrats said Tuesday that banning TikTok will have negative consequences beyond the freedom of expression, and urged their colleagues to vote against the bill when it comes up for a vote on Wednesday.

“What’s really important for the public to know is any ban on TikTok is not just banning the freedom of expression. You are literally causing huge harm to our national economy,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California. “We have small business owners that are here and small business owners from across the country that use TikTok to move our economy forward. Some of these creators in these business owners solely depend on TikTok for their revenue and their job. And so to rush a process for that could ban their form of work, particularly young people in this country is misguided.”

Garcia said singling out TikTok wasn’t fair – and that there is disinformation on all social media sites. The classified briefing that House members received Tuesday did nothing to change his mind, he said.

Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat, declared himself “not only am I a no on tomorrow’s TikTok ban bill, but I’m a hell no.”

Members were joined by TikTok creators, who have been pressuring Congress to vote against the bill.

Walking around Times Square one day in 2021, Teddy Siegel came to the sudden and horrifying realization that’s befallen many a New York City visitor: She had to pee, and there was nowhere to go.

Siegel began ducking into stores and shops, pleading with rising desperation to use their private restrooms, until finally finding a McDonald’s that let her use the restroom in exchange for making a purchase.

To remember the bathroom’s location for next time, Siegel took a video of the McDonald’s and saved it to her phone. Thus was born @Got2GoNYC, a TikTok account that aims to map all the publicly accessible toilets in the city.

Siegel’s brand of open, self-deprecating humor and her all-too-relatable outrage over a universal human experience has helped her reach more than 185,000 followers on the app and roughly half a million followers across multiple platforms.

Siegel says Congress is threatening to undermine her mission to document a real public health issue — the lack of available restrooms in public spaces — and to help people from around the world find relief fast.

Siegel is one of a diverse group of TikTok creators speaking out against what they see as an unreasonable restriction on their speech and economic activity, highlighting how some of the platform’s users are vocally at odds with legislation US officials say will block the risk of spying by the Chinese government.

Read more about how TikTok creators are reacting to the possible app ban.

While some countries – including the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia – have placed restrictions on the use of TikTok on devices issued to government workers, there is an outright ban on the app in a few other countries.

Many Western countries that have banned the Chinese-owned app from government employees phones argue it presents a security concern. They are worried China could use its national security laws to access the significant amount of personal information that TikTok, like most social media applications, collects from its US users.

The European Union launched a formal investigation last month into TikTok to determine whether the company is doing enough to protect minors on its platform as well as examine other suspected violations of the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act.

“The opening of proceedings means that the (European) Commission will investigate TikTok’s functionalities, systems and policies related to certain suspected infringements. It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation,” a spokesperson for the bloc’s executive arm said in a statement.

The commission will assess whether the company, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, is complying with requirements for large social media platforms to mitigate the risk of users becoming addicted to their content and to safeguard minors’ privacy and safety.

TikTok’s age verification tools, aimed at preventing children from accessing inappropriate content, “may not be reasonable, proportionate and effective,” the European Commission said in a news release.

Social media companies operating in the EU are bound by obligations set out in the Digital Services Act, enacted in August, which places stricter requirements on large tech companies — defined as those with more than 45 million monthly users in the bloc — and seeks to protect people’s rights online. TikTok has almost 136 million monthly active users in the EU, according to the European Commission

TikTok escalated its feud with House lawmakers this week as it accused two Republicans and a Democrat of mischaracterizing the company’s call-to-action campaign aimed at TikTok users, blasting certain claims by the members of Congress as “offensive” and “patently false.”

TikTok also sought to turn the tables on lawmakers, highlighting how many of the TikTok users flooding House offices with phone calls are the members’ own constituents.

“It is offensive that you would complain about hearing from your constituents and seek to deny them of their constitutional rights,” TikTok wrote to New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith, Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher and Illinois Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, in letters dated Monday and obtained by CNN.

TikTok’s advocacy campaign features a full-screen notification within the TikTok app urging users to call their representatives and to oppose a bill that could force a nationwide ban. That legislation is slated for a House floor vote on Wednesday.

Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z congressman, warned Tuesday that President Joe Biden potentially signing into law a bill that could ban TikTok wouldn’t be helpful as the president tries to court younger voters. 

“I don’t think it’ll be helpful with young voters. But you know, my argument here, yes, it has to do with young people. But taking a step back, I just think it’s bad policy,” Frost told CNN’s Manu Raju. 

He added that he believes Congress should address the potential risks posed by TikTok as well as other social media companies, but argued that the TikTok legislation is being “steamrolled” through Congress. 

“So I’m not sure this is the way to go. And the way it was steamrolled through Congress here,” Frost said. “A lot of my colleagues don’t fully understand what they’re voting on tomorrow, either. Okay, so I just think that this we’re moving too fast and something that’s going to have drastic impacts for people in this country.”

House Republicans are moving forward with a vote on the bill set for Wednesday despite Donald Trump having signaled some uneasiness over the legislation that would ban the app unless it part ways with its Chinese parent company.

House Republicans are pressing ahead with a Wednesday floor vote on legislation that would ban TikTok in the United States unless it part ways with its Chinese parent company, even as former President Donald Trump has signaled some uneasiness over the legislation.

House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers expressed confidence the measure would pass and downplayed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s opposition, noting he previously supported the idea of cracking down on the app.

“This is in alignment with what Donald Trump attempted to do when he was president. And he recognized that TikTok was a national security threat, and we are proceeding, because that threat continues today,” she said. “I’m just encouraging him to look at the bill.”

Still, there’s been a behind-the-scenes effort by bill supporters to launch a counter-campaign in response to TikTok’s lobbying blitz against the legislation. That included scheduling a classified briefing for all House members at 1 p.m. Tuesday about the app’s potential national security threat.

McMorris Rodgers also gave a briefing on the bill during a House GOP whip meeting on Monday night, though leadership is not formally whipping the bill, which will come up under suspension of the rules – an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage.

TikTok – and some of its users – are pulling out all the stops to contest a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban of the app.

As House lawmakers prepare to vote on the bill Wednesday, TikTok is encouraging users to call their representatives with a full-screen notification about the legislation. The company’s CEO, Shou Chew, has attempted to schedule 11th-hour meetings with members of Congress. It sent letters to two lawmakers on Monday challenging their characterizations of TikTok’s call-to-action campaign as “offensive” and “patently false.”

And TikTok claims that banning the app would harm 5 million businesses that rely on the platform.

One of those businesses belongs to Nadya Okamoto, a TikTok creator with more than 4 million followers and whose brand of menstruation products, August, is carried by national retailers including Target. (TikTok connected Okamoto with CNN.)

Okamoto’s TikTok account features videos on women’s health, sex education and the occasional glimpse into her personal life. She’s launched product collaborations with major brands such as the trendy footwear company Hoka. Her sisters are TikTok creators in their own right, one of whom is using her income from TikTok to pay her own way through college, Okamoto said.

TikTok’s heavy emphasis on the For You page makes it far easier for brands like August to reach new audiences compared to other apps, Okamoto said. “They’re primarily looking at content from people they don’t necessarily follow already. And so, as a business, that is a very unique thing.”

Okamoto, who is Asian-American, also suspects that running beneath the anti-TikTok rhetoric is a strain of fear and racism, echoing many other Asian-Americans who have looked on with growing alarm.

Read more about how creators are worried about the House vote.

House lawmakers are moving with dizzying speed with a plan that could ban TikTok from the United States.

In two days last week, a key House committee introduced and approved a bill targeting TikTok. The full House is set to vote on it Wednesday, and the White House says President Joe Biden is prepared to sign it.

But could a TikTok ban really happen? And what makes this proposal different from the other times policymakers have tried to clamp down on the video-sharing app used by 170 million Americans?

Here’s everything you need to know about the hot-button legislation.

What would the bill do?

If enacted, the bill would give TikTok roughly five months to separate from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or else app stores in the United States would be prohibited from hosting the app on their platforms.

It doesn’t stop there. The bill lays out similar restrictions for any app allegedly controlled by foreign adversaries, such as China, Iran, Russia or North Korea. And it sets up a process for Biden — or any future president — to identify apps that should be banned under the legislation.

App stores that violate the legislation could be fined based on the number of users of a banned app. The bill establishes fines of $5,000 per user of a banned app. So in the case of TikTok, Apple and Google could potentially be on the hook for up to $850 billion in fines each.

What is TikTok saying?

TikTok is calling the legislation an attack on the First Amendment rights of its users. It launched a call-to-action campaign within its app, urging users to call their representatives in Washington to oppose the bill. Multiple congressional offices say they’ve been flooded with calls.

“The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression,” TikTok said in a statement. “This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”

Read more about the push to ban TikTok.