In a delightful return to bipartisan cooperation, the United States House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted 352 to 65 on Wednesday in favor of a bill that would either force TikTok to find a new American owner or face eviction from app stores across the land. The bill, which legislators assure us has nothing to do with their own children ignoring them at the dinner table while deeply engrossed in choreographed dances, cities national security concerns as the apparent inspiration for this burst of legislative valor.
The bill gives TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, roughly five months to either sell the app to someone who probably wears a flag pin or watch it go dark faster than a congressional approval rating. President Biden, never one to miss an opportunity to out-hawk his critics, has said he would sign the bill if it lands on his desk, which is kept conveniently free of any actual legislation the Senate might hesitate over.
Lawmakers from both parties have expressed worries that TikTok might allow the Chinese government to access reams of user data or manipulate the minds of American teens who, to be fair, were already not exactly unreachable by propaganda. TikTok meanwhile insists it has spent over $1.5 billion attempting to wall off US user data from the Chinese government and keeps its U.S. operations headquartered safely within the borders of places like California, which feels American enough most of the time.
“This is not a ban,” said Representative Mike Gallagher, one of the bill’s co-authors and a chair of the House Select Committee on China. “This is a choice.” Which is a bit like saying giving up your phone at gunpoint is a lifestyle decision.
Opponents of the bill, including some lawmakers and a wide swath of the TikTok content creator demographic, which includes makeup reviewers, dance enthusiasts, and at least one guy who makes gourmet meals using a hot iron, argue the measure amounts to a government overreach and could potentially violate First Amendment rights. Strange how often free speech only becomes urgent when people film themselves lip-syncing to Megan Thee Stallion in silhouette.
In a surprising show of economic clout, TikTok summoned tens of its most passionate users to inundate Congress with phone calls predicting digital apocalypse should their beloved patch of social media be taken down. Reports suggest Capitol Hill voicemail inboxes suffered damage that may not be repairable without outside contractors and several cycles of therapy.
Now all eyes turn to the Senate, where technology bills famously go to enjoy quiet reflection before being buried in subcommittee indecision. Should the bill somehow muscle its way through and ByteDance fails to divest, major platforms like Apple and Google would be legally prohibited from distributing TikTok, which presumably means millions of teens may have to rediscover things like books, outside, and eye contact.
If all else fails, TikTok may become the first social media app smuggled across borders like contraband, one iPhone jailbreak at a time.
The Cold War had missiles, this one has dance challenges.