This morning, the US House of Representatives voted to basically ban TikTok, until Chinese-owned Bytedance divests from the app completely. If handed within the Senate, TikTok would have about six months to untangle itself from its China-based proprietor.

In speeches main as much as the vote on H.R. 7521, generally known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, members of Congress highlighted the various security concerns with the app, together with the potential for workers on the Chinese firm to entry American person information, and the unfold of pro-China propaganda.

In an announcement launched simply after the vote, Representative Sara Jacobs, who opposed the invoice, stated, “As a member of both the House Armed Services and House Foreign Affairs Committees, I am keenly aware of the threat that PRC information operations can pose, especially as they relate to our elections … Banning TikTok won’t protect Americans from targeted misinformation or misuse of their personal data, which American data brokers routinely sell and share.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stated she anxious the invoice might be used to power the sale of different social media platforms, significantly mentioning X, which is now owned by Elon Musk.

Last week, many TikTok customers opened the app to see a discover warning them that Congress was planning to ban the service, and urging them to call their representatives. Congressional places of work had been, apparently, flooded with calls from involved customers. This transfer might have backfired, demonstrating to a number of members of Congress the facility the app needed to form customers’ conduct. In her assertion in help of the invoice, Republican consultant Ashley Hinson requested, “What if TikTok sent out an alert saying that elections were canceled?”

But Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove famous that Chinese affect operations are usually not restricted to TikTok. In November 2023, Meta introduced that it had removed an enormous Chinese affect operation from its platforms that had focused the US. Some smaller networks had additionally focused customers in India and Tibet.

Prominent TikTok creators query the invoice. “It’s unclear that this bill is going to actually protect Americans, but I don’t think that’s really the goal,” says Charlotte Palermino, CEO and founding father of skin-care model Dieux, a preferred creator on TikTok and different platforms. “I find it to be very silly, but I think that it’s a nice encapsulation of American politics today, where we have people that do not understand technology trying to regulate it.”

Palermino sees TikTok Shop as a worthwhile device for small companies and says shuttering TikTok would have a detrimental short-term impact on Dieux. “Losing that would be challenging,” she says. While she’s assured Dieux might pivot to give attention to different platforms, she suspects a TikTok ban might significantly impression different impartial and up-and-coming manufacturers throughout the United States in a giant manner. “It will hurt their business.”

The invoice will now transfer to the Senate. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chair Mark R. Warner, Democrat of Virginia, and vice chair Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, issued the next assertion shortly after the House vote: “We are united in our concern concerning the nationwide safety risk posed by TikTok—a platform with huge energy to affect and divide Americans whose dad or mum firm ByteDance stays legally required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. We had been inspired by immediately’s robust bipartisan vote within the House of Representatives, and stay up for working collectively to get this invoice handed by way of the Senate and signed into legislation.”

This is not the first attempt to regulate TikTok, as lawmakers have long been concerned about the app as a potential security threat. Last year, Senator Warner proposed the RESTRICT Act, which would have allowed the US government to ban tech from adversary countries. The state of Montana approved an app ban, although it was blocked by a federal choose earlier than it might come into impact.

Earlier this 12 months, President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign joined TikTok. Still, Biden not too long ago informed reporters that he would sign the House’s TikTok ban into legislation if it was accredited within the Senate.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Andrew Couts, Kate Knibbs, and Makena Kelly contributed reporting.