(Yicai) March 7 -- The latest bill approved by the United States House of Representatives against social media apps controlled by companies from certain countries, such as China and Russia, is just a ban on TikTok, according to the spokesperson of the short-video platform under Chinese tech giant ByteDance.

“This bill is an outright ban on TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” the app’s spokesperson said. “This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive five million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”

On March 5, members of the US House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would require social media apps owned by companies registered in certain countries to become independent, as their parent firms would not be able to hold more than 20 percent of their total equity. The US Congress will have a preliminary vote today, local time.

If the US Congress passes the bill, ByteDance must divest from TikTok within 165 days. Otherwise, TikTok’s app would be removed from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.

This is not the first time US bans have targeted TikTok. In 2020, then US President Donald Trump issued a presidential executive order to force ByteDance to sell TikTok. But the ban was overturned by the US court.

In March 2023, US President Joe Biden asked ByteDance to divest from TikTok, and the short-vide platform’s Chief Executive Officer Shouzi Chew was called to attend a hearing in front of the US Congress.

TikTok is also facing challenges in Europe. On Feb. 19, the European Commission said it had launched a formal probe to investigate and evaluate whether TikTok violated the European Union Digital Services Act in terms of protection of children, transparency in advertising, access to data for researchers, and risk management of addictive design and harmful content.

TikTok’s spokesperson responded at the time that the app has pioneered features and settings to protect teens and keep under 13s off the platform.

Editor: Futura Costaglione