(NewsNation) — The House on Saturday approved a foreign aid bill that includes a possible ban on TikTok, but the China-owned social media app won’t disappear in the U.S. anytime soon.
After dying in the Senate as a stand-alone bill, the TikTok measure was included in the House-passed bill providing support to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Once that bill becomes law, TikTok’s owner, China’s ByteDance, will have up to one year to sell the app.
The Congressional timeline calls for ByteDance to sell TikTok within nine months, but there could be a three-month grace period if a sale is in progress.
The bill is expected to easily pass the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he’ll sign it.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill,” said TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek.
“(The law) would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually,” he added.
Critics say ByteDance is under control of the Chinese government, which can acquire the firm’s data on U.S. users at any time.
TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew told Congress in January that the company has not been asked to share data with the Chinese government, and never would if asked to do so.
Shou’s last comment came last month. “We will not stop fighting and advocating for you,” he said in a video to the app’s users. “We will continue to do all we can, including exercising our legal rights, to protect this amazing platform that we have built with you.”
But legal challenges could extend the timeline for a sale. TikTok has hinted that it will fight the mandated sale in U.S. courts, arguing it would violate its users’ First Amendment rights. Since mid-March, TikTok has spent $5 million on TV ads opposing the legislation, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking firm.
Several states have considered their own bans. Montana’s ban was struck down by a federal judge, who called it unconstitutional and that it put a state law in conflict with the federal government’s foreign affairs purview. The state of Montana appealed, and the case is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Texas’ ban was challenged last year by The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which argued in a lawsuit that the policy was impeding academic freedom because it extended to public universities. In December, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Senate will take up the House bill on Tuesday afternoon.
