Opponents of the bill warned it could undermine free speech,hurt businesses that rely on the platform to create content and broaden their reach,and lead to endless challenges in the courts.
As president in 2020,Trump signed an executive order trying to ban TikTok unless it was acquired by an American company,but this order never took effect after it was challenged in federal court.
Last week,however,he said that Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook posed a bigger threat.
“I don’t want Facebook,who cheated in the last election,doing better,” Trump posted without evidence on his Truth Social website. “They are a true enemy of the people.”
In the lead-up to the vote,thousands of users flooded the offices of Congress members with messages urging them to oppose the bill.
“You had member offices being deluged with calls,you know,teenagers crying and one threatening suicide and one impersonating one of my colleague’s sons,” Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher,a co-sponsor of the bill,told NPR.
“That,to me,demonstrates how the platform could be weaponised in the future.”
TikTok had also sent out push alerts telling users:“If the House of Representatives vote to ban TikTok on Wednesday,the government will take away the community that you and millions of other Americans love.”
Users were then able to directly enter their postcodes to call their local member of Congress.
“The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression,” the company said in a statement. “This will damage millions of businesses,deny artists an audience,and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”
However,some politicians argued that the legislation wouldn’t necessarily force a ban – unless its parent company refused to divest.
“This is not an attempt toban TikTok,” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the floor of the chamber.
“It’s an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner. A winner.”
Under the bill,TikTok must be sold within six months to a buyer who satisfies the government.
This would guarantee that ByteDance no longer has any control over TikTok or its algorithms that recommend content to users.
A number of progressive Democrats opposed the bill,including New York firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Florida freshman Maxwell Frost,the first member of Gen Z to be elected to Congress.
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Frost,27,said that any claim that the bill wouldn’t amount to a ban was simply “spin”.
“We’re talking about a very large company;there are only a few players who can afford to buy something like TikTok,” he told reporters.
“So essentially,what this bill is doing is setting up this whole sale to fail.”
They sided with Republican adversaries such as Trump loyalists Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace.