Minnesota's four Republican members of the U.S. House voted Wednesday to ban the popular video app TikTok from operating in the United States if the social media company's Chinese owner doesn't sell. And two Minnesota Democrats joined them in doing so.
GOP Reps. Tom Emmer, Michelle Fischbach, Pete Stauber and Brad Finstad voted for the bill, as did Democratic Reps. Angie Craig and Betty McCollum. The other two Democrats in Minnesota's U.S. House delegation, Reps. Dean Phillips and Ilhan Omar, voted against the bill.
"TikTok is a [Chinese Communist Party] spy app. Plain and simple," Emmer said in a social media post Wednesday morning. "House Republicans just passed a nonpartisan bill protecting Americans' data by sending a clear message: TikTok must sever ties with the CCP or lose its access to American users."
The measure won bipartisan support in the U.S. House, passing on a 352-65 vote. It now heads to the Senate, where its fate is unclear.
TikTok has more than 150 million American users but is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese technology firm. Lawmakers in Congress are worried ByteDance could share American users' data with the Chinese government. Some Chinese national security laws could compel organizations like ByteDance to help with intelligence gathering.
Omar said in a social media post that she voted against the bill because, "Not only are there 1st amendment concerns, this is bad policy."
"We should create actual standards & regulations around privacy violations across social media companies—not target platforms we don't like," Omar wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
President Joe Biden has signaled he would sign the House bill if it reaches his desk.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
