By Lauren Feiner , a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering

Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to President Biden’s desk

submited by

Style Pass

2024-04-24 02:30:09

By Lauren Feiner , a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform.

A bill that would force China-based company ByteDance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform — is all but certain to become law after the Senate passed a foreign aid package including the measure.

It now heads to President Joe Biden, who already committed to signing the TikTok legislation should it make it through both chambers of Congress. The House passed the foreign aid package that includes the TikTok bill on Saturday.

Once signed by the president, ByteDance would have up to a year to complete a sale of TikTok or face an effective ban for the platform in the US. The bill gives ByteDance an initial nine months and gives the president discretion to extend it another three should there be progress toward a deal. Still, legal challenges could possibly delay enforcement.

The Senate vote came together due to clever political maneuvering in the House, which has now twice voted to pass the TikTok legislation. The first time, House lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of the bill when brought as a standalone measure with a shorter divestment timeframe of six months. But key Senate leaders remained noncommittal about its future in that chamber.