The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed a bill that would require short-form video hosting service TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. Under the legislation, the app would no longer be available on app stores in the United States if it does not divulge from the company.
During his office hours in Greenville County on Friday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, made it known that he is unsure about the approach taken with the bill.
“I am hell-bent and determined to give the American consumer a better deal when it comes to social media, not just disconnect TikTok from Communist China,” Graham said.
Graham believes there should be regulation on TikTok but said more regulation in general is needed when it comes to social media, citing dangers that users face.
"If something happens to your family on social media, if your children are preyed upon by sexual predators or groomed online, there’s nothing you can do against a social media site,” Graham said. “All these companies are immune from lawsuits.”
H.R. 7521, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House, 352-65. The bill would provide ByteDance 180 days to divest from the app. TikTok officials said banning the app would be a violation of the First Amendment.
While Graham is voicing hesitation of a complete ban, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC, voted against the bill. She was one of 15 GOP House members to do so, saying there was no need to target one company.
“Banning TikTok is beating the same drum as other communist countries controlling what content we are able to see. Let’s not give the government any more power to control social media,” Mace said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Mace and Democratic Rep. James Clyburn were the only members of the South Carolina congressional delegation to oppose the legislation. Republican congressman Jeff Duncan, Russell Fry, Ralph Norman, William Timmons, and Joe Wilson voted for the bill.
“H.R. 7521 is a crucial step forward in the fight to end Chinese Communist Party espionage and spying through @tiktok_us,” said Duncan on X. “It isn’t just about the propaganda pushed out by China. – it’s also about censorship (what content you don’t ever see.)”
South Carolina state officials are also grappling with the issue of TikTok. The app is already banned on all state government issued devices.
Gov. Henry McMaster believes the cybersecurity risks associated with the app are not worth it.
"Protecting our State’s critical cyber infrastructure from foreign and domestic threats is key to ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of our citizens and businesses,” McMaster wrote in a 2022 letter. "Federal law enforcement and national security officials have warned that TikTok poses a clear and present danger to its users, and a growing bi-partisan coalition in Congress is pushing to ban access to TikTok in the United States."
Content creators on TikTok are worried about a potential loss of income from a federal ban of the app.
"Without TikTok, basically all the mouths that I feed every day wouldn't get fed every day," said William McCoy, a former drug dealer and ex-felon from Baltimore, who said he uses TikTok to help homeless people in his community.
President Joe Biden has said that he would be willing to sign the legislation regarding TikTok if it makes it to his desk.
