WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) – The United States House of Representatives is set to vote on Wednesday on a bill requiring Chinese company ByteDance to divest its video-sharing app TikTok within six months or face a ban.
The vote is expected to take place around 10:00 a.m. (2:00 p.m. GMT) under a fast-track procedure that requires the support of two-thirds of members of the House of Representatives to pass. Its adoption seems very likely, both for its supporters and for its opponents.
This vote comes more than a week after the proposal was submitted, after a public hearing which sparked little debate, and after more than a year of pause.
President Joe Biden launched his re-election campaign on TikTok last month, raising hopes among network officials that the law would not pass this year.
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Last week, all fifty members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously in favor of the bill, allowing it to go to the full House for a vote. .
Its course will be more uncertain in the US Senate, where some elected officials want a different approach to the regulation of applications owned by foreign companies and likely to pose security problems.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not indicated how he plans to act.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will visit the Capitol on Wednesday to speak with senators, a source familiar with the matter said.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a complete ban on TikTok in the United States,” the company said. “The government is trying to deprive 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech,” she added.
Joe Biden said last week he would sign the bill. (Reporting David Shepardson; French version Mathias de Rozario; editing by Kate Entringer)
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