Seattle area TikTok influencers slam Congress's proposed ban

Seattle-area content creators are speaking out about legislation that could ban TikTok across the United States.

U.S. House lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday that would give TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, 180 days to divest from the app in the U.S. If it doesn’t, TikTok would be banned throughout the country.

Renton, Wash.-based Teena Thach said the ban would be crushing.

“I would lose my community — the community that I started with, the community that I built from Washington foodies,” she said.

RELATED: U.S. House approves TikTok ban with help from Washington state delegation

Thach has made a name for herself on TikTok by reviewing minority-owned restaurants in the Seattle area. It all started during the pandemic when she posted a review of the boba bar Mangosteen. She said the owner called to thank her for bringing in business during a difficult time.

“At that moment, I was like, 'OK, this might be my purpose in life to tell these stories and uplift people through storytelling in these short form videos,'” she said.

Now Thach is worried her platform could disappear.

Backers of the bill say TikTok exposes Americans to influence and surveillance because of ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government. TikTok denies those claims, and says its American users are insulated from foreign influence.

“This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: it's a ban,” a TikTok spokesperson said. “We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, seven million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”

The last time the federal government considered forcing TikTok to spin out of ByteDance, Microsoft emerged as a likely buyer. The Seattle-area company considered buying TikTok in 2020 when President Donald Trump threatened to ban the app if it retained Chinese ownership. Trump’s attempted TikTok ban stalled in court, and was ultimately rescinded by the Biden administration.