WASHINGTON, D.C., (March 13, 2024) – Today, U.S. Congressman Tim Burchett (TN-02) voted in favor of H.R. 7521, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
"I voted against allowing the Chinese Communist Party to control an enormous information mining source in the United States. This isn’t a bill to ban TikTok, it just requires TikTok to get out from under the Chinese government’s thumb.” said Rep. Burchett.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act would prohibit app stores from hosting applications controlled by foreign adversaries of the United States, such as China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia.
This bill grants the president the authority to require foreign adversary-controlled companies to divest from an app only if the app presents a national security threat and has over one million monthly active users. It also contains provisions to prevent enforcement action from being taken against individual users of a banned application.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act does not ban TikTok in the United States. It would require ByteDance, which is TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, to divest from TikTok or else the app would be prohibited from U.S. app stores and hosting services.
The bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives 352-65, with one member voting present. The full text of the bill can be found here.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://burchett.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-burchett-votes-require-ccp-affiliated-company-divest-tiktok