WASHINGTON: TikTok on Sunday (Apr 21) repeated its free-speech concerns about a Bill passed by the House of Representatives that would ban the popular social media app in the US if Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its stake within a year.
The House passed the legislation on Saturday by a margin of 360 to 58. It now moves to the Senate where it could be taken up for a vote in the coming days. President Joe Biden has previously said he would sign the legislation on TikTok.
Many US lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties and the Biden administration say TikTok poses national security risks because China could compel the company to share the data of its 170 million US users.
The step to include TikTok in a broader foreign aid package may fast track the timeline on a potential ban after an earlier separate Bill stalled in the Senate.
"It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban Bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans," TikTok said in a statement.
TikTok in February had criticized the original Bill that ultimately stalled in the Senate, saying that it would "censor millions of Americans." It had similarly argued that a state ban on TikTok in Montana passed last year was a violation of the First Amendment.
The American Civil Liberties Union opposed the House Bill on free speech grounds.
TikTok insists it has never shared US data and never would.