A bill to force TikTok’s owner company, ByteDance, to either sell its American interests to a U.S.-based company — or be banned in the United States — has passed in the House of Representatives after Donald Trump opposed it.
The former president wanted TikTok banned during his own term but changed his mind recently. Trump says that his change of position was unrelated to his meeting with a billionaire Republican donor who has large investments in the app.
His House allies did not have the same change of heart, however, with a few exceptions. Only 15 of them voted against the legislation, with 197 in favor; while Democrats were more split, 155 in favor of the legislation, 50 opposed, and 8 abstaining or voting ‘present.’
Representative Nancy Pelosi spoke in advance of the vote, emphasizing that she was not supporting a ban, but a change. She also spoke on how the app has been used to promote disinformation and propaganda, and other ways the app is being exploited. She said:
‘During the Taiwan election, Tiktok Tiktok’d into Taiwan that the Uyghurs, on whom there is a genocide exercised by the Chinese government…that the Uyghurs like that genocide. They told them that the people of Hong Kong like the destruction of their democracy…This is controlled by the Chinese Communist Government.”
Just a year ago, Trump agreed with her. At the time, he posted on TruthSocial, declaring that everyone who now “wants to go after and destroy, TikTok due to China influence and National Security,” was finally recognizing that he had been right all along.
His most adoring supporters, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, agreed. Greene posted on her social media in November, alleging that the app was “brainwashing our kids with CCP propaganda.”
Now that Pelosi and some other Democrats take a similar view, and Trump has reversed his position, Greene has flipped too. Now she says:
“Democrats are creating a narrative that TikTok is going to “interfere in elections,” so they can claim the 2024 election is rigged…As a member of Congress and candidate who was banned by Democrat-controlled Twitter, I know first hand about election interference.”
As for Trump, his current claim is that he’s opposing a ban because it would boost social media sites owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, rather than because he had a productive meeting with a wealthy donor and investor.
He also owns a competing social media app in TruthSocial and may need to sell those shares because of his financial difficulties. A ban on TikTok could suppress the prices of social media companies across the board because of perceived financial risks.
Neither Trump nor his allies are addressing the facts that the legislation would only result in a ban if ByteDance refuses to divest, nor that if that happens, it would not do so until three months after the final passage of the bill, which would be well into the election cycle even if the Senate and President Biden move quite quickly to finish the process.
Watch Representative Pelosi’s statement below.
.@SpeakerPelosi: "This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It's an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner. A winner." pic.twitter.com/DYlET4avQk
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 13, 2024
Below, see Rep. Greene do a full about-face to defend TikTok.
.@RepMTG on TikTok bill: "I rise today as the only member of Congress that has ever been banned by social media…Twitter banned me.. I believe that this bill can cause future problems. It's opening Pandora's box…" pic.twitter.com/rIZtDYF97C
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 13, 2024
