Congress passed a TikTok bill. Will the US really ban the app?

O House of Representatives passed a bill that would require TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face an outright ban in the United States. The Senate approved it less than a week later. Joe Biden signed it the day after the Senate voted yes.

TikTok faces its biggest existential threat in the US. The app was banned in Montana last year, but courts found the ban unconstitutional and it never went into effect.

Here’s what you need to know about the bill, how likely it is that TikTok will be banned, and what it means for the platform’s 170 million U.S. users.

Related: House votes to force TikTok owner ByteDance to divest or face US ban

Is the US Really Trying to Ban TikTok and Why?

The bill passed in the House on Wednesday is the latest salvo in an ongoing political battle over the platform, which exploded in popularity after its emergence in 2017. Quickly overcome Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in downloads in 2018 and reported a 45% increase in monthly active users between July 2020 and July 2022.

The platform’s meteoric rise has alarmed some lawmakers, who believe TikTok’s China-based parent company could collect sensitive user data and censor content that goes against the Chinese government.

TikTok has repeatedly said it has not and would not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government, but lawmakers’ concerns were exacerbated by news investigations that showed China-based ByteDance employees had accessed non-public data about US TikTok users.

TikTok argued that US users’ data is not held in China, but in Singapore and the US, where it is routed through cloud infrastructure operated by Oracle, an American company. In 2023, TikTok opened a data center in Ireland, where shoulder straps Data on EU citizens.

These measures were not enough for many US lawmakers, and in March 2023, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was called before Congress, where he faced more than five hours of intense questioning about these and other practices. Lawmakers asked Chew about his nationality, accusing him of loyalty to China. He is actually Singaporean.

Several efforts to police TikTok and how it interacts with U.S. user data were introduced in Congress last year, culminating in the bill passed Wednesday.

Is this bill really a ban on TikTok?

Under the new bill, ByteDance would have 165 days to divest from TikTok, meaning it would have to sell the social media platform to a company not based in China. Otherwise, app stores, including the Apple App Store and Google Play, would be legally barred from hosting TikTok or providing web hosting services for apps controlled by ByteDance.

The bill’s authors argued that it does not constitute a ban as it gives ByteDance the opportunity to sell TikTok and avoid being blocked in the US.

“TikTok could live on and people could do whatever they wanted with it as long as there was that separation,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China. “It’s not a ban – think of it as surgery designed to remove the tumor and thus save the patient in the process.”

TikTok argued otherwise, saying it was unclear whether China would approve a sale or whether it could even complete a sale within six months.

“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: the complete ban of TikTok in the United States,” the company said after the committee vote. “The government is trying to deprive 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech. It will harm millions of businesses, deny artists audiences, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”

How did we get here?

TikTok has faced a series of bans and attempted bans in recent years, starting with an executive order from Donald Trump in 2020, which was ultimately blocked by the courts on First Amendment grounds. Since then, Trump inverted his stance, now opposing the TikTok ban. Joe Biden, on the other hand, has said he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Montana attempted to impose a statewide ban on the app in 2023, but the law was overturned by a federal judge for First Amendment violations. The application was banned on government-issued phones in the US in 2022, and by 2023, at least 34 states have also banned TikTok from government devices. At least 50 universities in the US have banned TikTok from campus Wi-Fi and university-owned computers.

The Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) demanded in March 2023 that ByteDance sell its TikTok shares or face the possibility of the app being banned, Reuters reported, but no action was taken.

TikTok was banned in India in 2020 after a wave of dangerous “challenges” led to the deaths of some users. The ban had a marked effect on competition in India, handing a significant market to YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, direct competitors to TikTok. The app is not available in China itself, where Douyin, a separate app from parent company ByteDance with firmer moderation, is widely used.

How would a TikTok ban be enforced?

Due to the decentralized nature of the Internet, imposing a ban would be complex. The project approved by the Chamber would penalize application stores daily for making TikTok available for download, but for users who already have the application on their cell phones, it would be difficult to stop individual use.

Internet service providers may also be forced to block IP addresses associated with TikTok, but such practices can be easily avoided on computer browsers by using a VPN, or virtual private network, which redirects computer connections to other locations.

To fully limit access to TikTok, the US government would have to employ methods used by countries like Iran and China, which structure their Internet in a way that makes content restrictions more easily enforceable.

Who supports the potential ban on TikTok?

Although Trump – who started the war on TikTok in 2020 – reversed his stance on the possible ban, most Republican lawmakers have expressed support for it. The Biden administration also supported the bill, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying the administration wants “to see this bill completed so it can get to the president’s desk.” The Biden campaign joined TikTok last month.

Despite Trump’s opposition to the bill, many Republicans are pushing move forward with the effort to ban TikTok or force its sale to an American company.

“Well, he’s wrong. And by the way, he had his own executive orders and his own actions he was doing, and now … he suddenly changed his mind,” said Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and member of the far-right Freedom Caucus. “I mean, this is not the first or last time I disagree with the former president. The TikTok issue is pretty straightforward.”

Who opposes the TikTok bill?

TikTok vehemently opposed the legislation, urging the Senate not to pass it. “We are hopeful that the Senate considers the facts, listens to its constituents, and realizes the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service,” said TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek. after Wednesday’s vote.

In the House, 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the bill, including Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who cited her experience being banned from social media. House Democrats, including Maxwell Frost of Florida and Delia Ramirez of Illinois joined TikTok creators outside the Capitol after voting to express opposition to the bill.

Some Senate Democrats have already publicly opposed the bill, citing free speech concerns, and have suggested measures that would address concerns of foreign influence on social media without specifically targeting TikTok. “We need restrictions on social media, but we need those restrictions to be applied across the board,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a neutral statement on next steps in the Senate, saying he will “review the legislation as it comes from the House.”

Free speech and civil rights groups strongly opposed the ban, saying such legislation could have a profound impact on the Internet at large. They argued that TikTok’s data practices, while problematic, are not substantially different from those of U.S.-based technology companies.

“TikTok isn’t perfect, but banning it is the wrong solution,” said Jenna Ruddock, policy adviser at the media advocacy group Free Press. “Like all popular platforms, including those owned by Meta and Google, TikTok collects a lot of data about its users. But the unilateral dismantling of spaces for free expression limits people’s access to information and cuts off paths for creators to build communities.”

What will happen to TikTok next?

The bill still faces an uphill battle to become law. Although Biden confirmed he would sign it, it still needs to pass a Senate vote. It’s unclear when that vote would take place, but TikTok will likely increase its lobbying efforts in Congress as it moves forward, with CEO Chew header to Congress on Wednesday to speak to senators.

Even if the bill were to pass, it is likely to face similar free speech-based challenges that have prevented similar legislation — such as Trump’s in 2020 and Montana’s ban in 2023 — from moving forward.