A bipartisan group of lawmakers is looking to repeal the recent TikTok ban just days after it took effect, introducing legislation that would undo a law passed by Congress last year that shut down the popular social media platform in the United States.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the Repeal the TikTok Ban Act on Monday, seeking to repeal requirements for ByteDance to divest from the social media platform or be blocked from U.S. app stores. The bill comes after President Donald Trump already signed an executive order on his first day in office delaying a ban on the app by 75 days, although the legality of such a move is in question.
“They tell you this is about China,” Paul said in a statement. “About security. About safety. That’s a lie. This is about control. About fear. About silencing you. A government that can ban an app, can ban a book. A government that can silence a platform, can silence a person.
“The right to free speech doesn’t come with exceptions,” he added. “Not for apps. Not for ideas. Not for politicians who think they know better than you. They don’t ban speech to protect you. They ban speech to control you.”
Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill last year to ban the app from stores unless ByteDance, the Chinese-based parent company that owns the popular social media app, sold the platform to a non-Chinese buyer. The deadline was Sunday, after which the app stopped working for several users in the country.
However, TikTok announced it would revive services after Trump vowed on social media to sign an executive order to repeal the ban. While the app began working again for those who already downloaded it, TikTok remains unavailable for download on Google’s and Apple’s app stores.
Although Trump signed the 75-day extension on Monday, it is unclear whether he has the power to override federal law, making it susceptible to legal challenges — especially after the Supreme Court upheld the ban in a decision last week.
Meanwhile, some Republicans are pushing for the ban to remain in place, arguing there is no legal basis to give ByteDance an extension.
“For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a joint statement with Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE). “Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”
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Trump has previously supported moves to ban TikTok, even signing an executive order that would ban app stores from making the social media platform available for download. However, he has since reversed his stance, even going so far as to create his own account last summer.
When asked what caused him to change his mind, Trump merely told reporters Monday that it was “because I got to use it.”