Social media is having mixed feelings about President Joe Biden after he admitted his plans to sign the bill that could ban TikTok if Congress passes it.
On Friday (March 8), Biden told reporters that he would sign a bill forcing TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to divest its popular social media company or face a ban in the United States. While addressing the bipartisan legislation that is on track to get a vote next week in the House, Biden said, “If they pass it, I’ll sign it.” If the bill is passed, ByteDance will have 165 days to divest TikTok or face being banned in America.
The bill, which is called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would also need to pass the Senate before making its way to Biden’s desk for signature. The bill, from Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), quickly advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with unanimous support on Thursday (March 7), just two days after it was introduced.
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Although House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) pushed back some, claiming the Republicans used a “rushed process” on the bill, he and other Democrats eventually showed their support, mainly due to their concerns over national security and TikTok’s Chinese-based parent company ByteDance.
It’s also reported that the White House had provided technical support in the drafting of the bill. Earlier this week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the TikTok legislation “still needs some work” to get to a place where Biden would endorse it.
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The legislation would allow the President, via the FBI and intelligence agencies, to name certain social media apps as national security threats if they are determined to be under the control of foreign adversaries. If any apps are declared a risk, they will be banned from all U.S. app stores, unless they sever their ties with foreign-controlled entities within 180 days.
TikTok continues to push back against the bill and deny any and all allegations raised against them by U.S. agencies. A spokesperson has since stated that the legislation has a “predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States.”
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On Thursday (March 7), ahead of the House vote, TikTok launched a campaign to try and block the bill from advancing but to no avail. In their campaign, TikTok urged its users to call and email Congress and demand them to “stop a TikTok shutdown.”
Meanwhile, Biden’s likely Republican counterpart in the 2024 Presidential election, Donald Trump, has signaled opposition to the bill. While he was in office during the 2016-2020 term, Trump sought to ban TikTok himself but has changed his mind. On Thursday, he posted on his social app Truth Social that banning TikTok could benefit Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — which are the same platforms that banned him in 2021 and later reinstated him in 2023.
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