President Biden says he would sign bill regulating TikTok

President Biden told reporters Friday that he would sign a bipartisan bill regulating TikTok if it were passed by Congress. 

“If they pass it, I’ll sign it,” Biden said, in reference to the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, according to The Hill. 

The bill gives TikTok's China-based parent company, ByteDance, 165 days to sell the social media platform. Lawmakers said the bill could be taken up by the House as early as next week after a House panel unanimously passed it on Thursday.  

"This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States," TikTok said after the Thursday vote, according to Reuters. "The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country." 

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who introduced the legislation with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said regarding the bill, "TikTok could live on and people could do whatever they want on it provided there is that separation. It is not a ban - think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient in the process."  

Both the ACLU and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University have claimed the bill could violate the right to freedom of speech. 

At least two House offices have said that they've received calls from U.S. children threatening suicide if the bill passes, according to The Spectator.  

Congressional staffers also said that callers have told them that they are being forced to make the call in order to use the app, per CNBC. 

Last November, a judge blocked Montana’s state ban on TikTok, citing free speech violations against the app’s users.  

Former President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020 but was blocked by courts. 

On Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he opposes the bipartisan TikTok bill. 

“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” he wrote. “I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”