As of March 7, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced a bill that could result in the social media app TikTok being banned nationwide. According to CNN, the bill would give apps that are owned by companies of foreign adversaries around 5 months to separate the app from the parent company to prevent being banned on U.S. app stores. This means that apps with parent companies that reside in countries such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China would be affected by this bill, thus needing to sell the app to a different company or accept being banned in the U.S. TikTok is currently owned by the China based company ByteDance. 

If the ban goes through, app stores that attempt to host banned apps may face a fine of $5,000 per user of said app. If TikTok were to be banned, Apple and Google could be facing fines of $850 billion each if they continue to host the app on their app stores. 

This is not the first time that U.S. Politicians have fought to ban TikTok in the United States. Back in 2020 during his presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok if they weren’t acquired by a different parent company within 45 days, which ultimately did not happen. Furthermore, just last spring Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill to ban the video-sharing platform from app stores to “protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party.” 

While the bill still must go through the Senate, the bill easily passed through the House on March 13. Results from CNN reveal that the bill passed on a 352-65 vote, with 50 of the no votes coming from representatives from the Democratic party. However, civil society groups pose doubts about the bill’s ability to stand as they believe it violates the first amendment, a similar issue that prevented the passing of Montana’s ban on TikTok. Regardless of this, if the bill makes its way to President Joe Biden’s desk, then he will support it, as he recently told reporters at a Maryland airbase “If they pass it, I’ll sign it.”