U.S. lawmakers seek to force ByteDance to divest TikTok or face ban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on Tuesday that would give China's ByteDance about six months to divest popular short video app TikTok or face a U.S. ban.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the House of Representatives' select China committee and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat, are introducing legislation along with more than a dozen other lawmakers to address national security concerns posed by Chinese ownership of the app.

An initial vote is expected Thursday.

"This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users," Gallagher said. "America's foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States."

The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok, which is used by more than 170 million Americans, or it would be unlawful for app stores operated by Apple, Google and others to offer TikTok or to provide web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications. The bill would not authorize any enforcement against individual users of an affected app.

"This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it," a company spokesperson said Tuesday. "This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs."

TikTok says it has not and would not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government.

Senate legislation to ban the popular app stalled in Congress last year in the face of heavy lobbying by TikTok. The bill marks the first significant legislative move toward banning or forcing ByteDance to divest the app in