House approves TikTok ban bill. How did New York vote?

The House of Representatives approved a bill Wednesday that would force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok to the U.S. entity or face a total ban.

The vote was passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 352 to 65, with one vote present, after allegations from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party that the company is sharing data from millions of U.S. users to China.

Is TikTok banned in the U.S?

Not yet. Although President Joe Biden has said he would support such legislation if it came to his desk and the bill passed overwhelmingly in the House, it faces uncertain support in the Senate. Biden joined the social media service in February as part of his presidential campaign, presumably to appeal to young voters.

According to the bill, ByteDance has six months to sell TikTok to the U.S. before facing a total ban of the app.

The House Select Committee on China spent months interrogating the social media platform's higher ups, including CEO Shou Zi Chew, about whether the app was selling user data to the Chinese government, but Chew and other officials continue to deny the allegations.

"This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it," TikTok said in an emailed statement. "This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs."

Two states have already passed legislation to ban the app in some form; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in May 2023 banning the app from state universities and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill to ban TikTok in the state altogether.

How did NY lawmakers vote on TikTok?

NY16: Jamaal Bowman, No

NY17: Mike Lawler, Yes

NY18: Pat Ryan, Yes

NY19: Marc Molinaro, Yes

NY yes votes (18): Lawler, Ryan, Molinaro, Clarke, D'Esposito, Garbarino, Goldman, Jeffries, LaLota, Langworthy, Malliotakis, Morelle, Stefanik, Suozzi, Tenney, Tonko, Torres, Williams

NY no votes (7): Bowman, Espaillat, Meeks, Meng, Nadler, Ocasio-Cortez, Velazquez

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who represents the 14th congressional district of the Bronx and Queens, said she was one of the 65 no votes on the floor Wednesday, citing "serious antitrust and privacy questions."