The controversial, bipartisan bill that could ban the popular social media app TikTok has formulated some unlikely allies from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, following a fast-moving House vote Wednesday, which overwhelmingly approved the legislation.
Proponents of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act claim the app, popular among teenagers and Gen Zers, is a national security risk, citing concerns that Chinese authorities could force its parent company ByteDance to divulge data of the app’s 170 million users. Meanwhile, its opposers, including former President Donald Trump, say that it infringes on First Amendment rights. Though the bill is headed for the Senate, where passage remains uncertain, the divisive legislation has created interesting allies among lawmakers across political lines.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who co-sponsored the bill, voted in favor of a potential ban on the app Wednesday. Pelosi has been a long-standing skeptic of TikTok and its affiliations with the Chinese government. In 2022, she supported legislation that would ban federal government employees from using the app.
“This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It’s an attempt to make TikTok better,” Pelosi said Wednesday. “Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner. A winner.”
Two Republican representatives from Texas, Rep. Chip Roy and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, also supported the bill, putting them on the same side as Pelosi, a long-standing opponent.
Roy said he “unapologetically” supported the bill, saying it would prevent foreign adversaries from obtaining information from the public using the app, and Crenshaw said, “Our First Amendment doesn’t apply to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Meanwhile, young Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost (FL) disagreed with the previous Democratic speaker, saying on X that it would not fix security and privacy issues.
On the same side as Frost stood Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who also opposed the bill.
On Wednesday, Greene slammed the bill, saying she was the only member of Congress who had ever been banned from the app and listed other ways the U.S. government could stop the Chinese government besides banning a social media app.
“What’s to stop Congress or the United States government in the future from forcing the sale of another social media company, claiming that it’s protecting Americans data from foreign adversaries?”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who is favored to win in his race for a seat in the U.S. Senate, diverged from his previous Democratic opponents, Reps. Katie Porter and Barbra Lee (CA) voted against the bill; instead, the California Democrat voted along with prominent Republican lawmakers Roy and Crenshaw.
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While Trump attempted to ban TikTok in 2020 using an executive order that was later blocked by the courts, the former president became an unlikely ally of the app, claiming that passing the recent legislation would make Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, stronger.
The upper chamber, which has been less partisan on the issue, will now vote on the controversial ban.
