House Speaker Mike Johnson says that the House is being pushed to vote on a bill that would sell or completely ban TikTok. This bill is part of the aid plan for Ukraine.
A changed version of the bill would have said that TikTok had one year to decide whether to sell the app or have it banned in the US. This bill gives them an extra six months on top of the first six months that the first bill they were trying to pass gave them.
The bill should be passed by the House this weekend after a vote is set up in the Senate.
The new bill was made to give ByteDance, which owns TikTok, more time to think about what it wants to do next. Many people have said that six months isn’t enough time to sell the platform.
At first, Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, wasn’t in favor of the bill, but she has now said she is. Cantwell is pleased that Speaker Johnson and House leaders agreed with her suggestion to make the Byte Dance divestment time longer, from six months to a year. She went on, “As I already said, the divestment period needs to be extended to give a new buyer enough time to make a deal.” I agree with this new law.”
A lot of people were worried about possible security holes and data collection through the app, which is why this threat was made public. A lot of lawmakers have said that this tool could be used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans or spread propaganda.
The push is even stronger now that the US election is coming up in November. Lawmakers are scared about how TikTok or social media buzzing about the candidates could affect the election or social media.
