House Democrats and Republicans say the legislation, which would pressure TikTok's China-based owner to divest, is needed to protect Americans' data. Senators are still evaluating it.
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WASHINGTON — The House is poised to pass legislation Wednesday that could ban TikTok in the U.S. as Republicans and Democrats alike sound the alarm that the popular video-sharing app is a national security threat.
TikTok, owned by China-based parent company ByteDance, is mounting an aggressive lobbying campaign to kill the legislation, arguing that it would violate the First Amendment rights of its 170 million U.S. users and harm thousands of small businesses that rely on it.
That means TikTok, which FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified poses a risk to national security, could face a ban unless ByteDance acted quickly to divest it.
U.S. lawmakers and intelligence officials worry the Chinese government could use TikTok to access personal data from its millions of users and use algorithms to show them videos that could influence their views, including in the coming presidential election.
Testifying before Congress a year ago, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew denied that the Chinese government controls the app and pushed back against suggestions that China accesses U.S. user data.
Outside the Capitol, a handful of young House Democrats — Robert Garcia and Sarah Jacobs of California, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Delia Ramirez of Illinois — rallied alongside TikTok creators to express their opposition to the bill.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
WASHINGTON — The House is poised to pass legislation Wednesday that could ban TikTok in the U.S. as Republicans and Democrats alike sound the alarm that the popular video-sharing app is a national security threat.
TikTok, owned by China-based parent company ByteDance, is mounting an aggressive lobbying campaign to kill the legislation, arguing that it would violate the First Amendment rights of its 170 million U.S. users and harm thousands of small businesses that rely on it.
That means TikTok, which FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified poses a risk to national security, could face a ban unless ByteDance acted quickly to divest it.
U.S. lawmakers and intelligence officials worry the Chinese government could use TikTok to access personal data from its millions of users and use algorithms to show them videos that could influence their views, including in the coming presidential election.
Testifying before Congress a year ago, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew denied that the Chinese government controls the app and pushed back against suggestions that China accesses U.S. user data.
Outside the Capitol, a handful of young House Democrats — Robert Garcia and Sarah Jacobs of California, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Delia Ramirez of Illinois — rallied alongside TikTok creators to express their opposition to the bill.
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