But does the ban actually mean an end to TikTok in the US? How would it work – and could something similar happen in the UK?
What does the bill mean?
The bill gives Chinese company ByteDance nine months to sell its stake in the US version of TikTok – with the possibility of a three-month extension to finalise a deal – or the app will be blocked.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the goal is ending Chinese ownership – not banning TikTok.
But it is unclear if China would approve any sale or if it could go ahead within the timeframe.
There’s also a question mark over who would buy it – although if the legislation is passed, it could make the sale price cheaper.
“Somebody would have to actually be ready to shell out the large amount of money that this product and system is worth,” said Stanford University researcher Graham Webster, who studies Chinese technology policy and US-China relations.
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“But even if somebody has deep enough pockets and is ready to go into negotiating to purchase, this sort of matchmaking on acquisitions is not quick.”
What would it mean for users?
The app is used by about 170 million Americans.
If it is banned, it would be removed from app stores including Apple and Google, and blocked on web hosting services.
This would remain in place until ByteDance sold TikTok.
However, it is likely users could still access the app using virtual private networks (VPNs) that bypass restrictions, according to telecom analyst Roger Entner.
Why is the US worried about TikTok?
Both the FBI and Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok owner ByteDance could share user data, such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers, with China’s authoritarian government.
TikTok said it has never done that and would not do so if asked.
The worry stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organisations to help with intelligence gathering.
The US director of national intelligence has also said she “cannot rule out” that China would use TikTok to influence US elections.
Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell said the move to force TikTok’s sale was not aimed at “punishing” ByteDance, TikTok, or other companies.
“Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our US government personnel,” she said.
What happens now?
President Joe Biden will now sign the legislation.
He had already committed to signing the bill if it passed, despite his 2024 campaign officially joining TikTok in February.
However, the company will likely launch a legal challenge against the bill, arguing it will deprive the app’s 170 million US users of their First Amendment rights, which protect freedom of speech.
The company will need to file any legal challenges within 165 days of the bill being signed by the president.
It could also face opposition from TikTok’s content creators who rely on the platform for their income, while China has previously said it would oppose a forced sale of the popular app.
In November, a US judge blocked a Montana state ban on TikTok use after the company sued.
The passage of the bill could also change depending on the outcome of the November election.
Despite Donald Trump vowing to ban the app in 2020on national security grounds – with his administration brokering a deal that would have had US corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok – the presidential hopeful no longer supports a ban.
This came after a review found there “could” be a risk to how data and information is used by the app.
Oliver Dowden said while TikTok use was “limited”, banning it was good cyber “hygiene”.
However, he stressed the government was not advising people against using TikTok in a personal capacity.
He told MPs: “This ban applies to government corporate devices within ministerial and non-ministerial departments, but it will not extend to personal devices for government employees or ministers or the general public.
“That is because, as I have outlined, this is a proportionate move based on a specific risk with government devices.”
The cabinet office said the move was taken because TikTok users are required to hand over data including contacts, user content and geolocation data.
What has TikTok said about the US bill?
TikTok urged senators to listen to their constituents before taking any action on the bill, which it said amounted to a ban.
A TikTok spokesperson said: “This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: It’s a ban.
“We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realise the impact on the economy, seven million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”
TikTok has also pointed out that there is no Chinese state ownership within ByteDance or representation on its board.
Crucially, it says it is incorporated outside of China – a fact that seeks to distance TikTok and ByteDance from coming under the influence of the Chinese intelligence law on information-sharing.
Much has been said about the students whose protests have gripped America this past week.
Their cause has been framed in polarising ways. A violent Hamas-sympathising mob? Or peace activists striving for equality?
Within a frenzied spectrum of views and noise, one young student sat down with me for a conversation.
Aidan Doyle, 21, is a philosophy and jazz double major at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).
He was arrested early on Thursday morning for being part of an encampment at the university.
He told Sky News he was shocked that the police arrested so many student protesters, despite not intervening in an attack on the protesters by a pro-Israeli group the day before.
He said his arrest had not deterred him from continuing his protest, which he likened to the Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s.
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Mr Doyle rejected the notion, from President Biden, that the protests are not peaceful.
“Graffiti, putting posters up, that’s all peaceful,” he said, commenting on the president’s statement from the White House.
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“I also think that President Biden needs to actually take some introspection and realise that maybe the reason so many of these protests are happening is partially due to him.”
Mr Doyle added: “Protests in general are part of the American spirit. They’re part of being an American. And if we were to just stand around in circles and sing and dance, and pretend everything was fine, then nothing would change and nobody would care at all.
“Part of a protest is causing disruption and causing at least a minor level of chaos that is, again, not violent but that actually disrupts things.”
He denied any accusations of antisemitism, but conceded there is a spectrum of opinion within the movement.
“If you’re going to criticise a movement, I think you have to look at the movement’s goals and their mission, not what fringe members of the group say or do.
“You have to actually look at what we say, what the organisers say, and what is in the mainstream, and what our mission and our goal is: the peace and prosperity of the Palestinian people.”
Asked if he believed in Israel’s right to exist as a country, he said: “I think Jewish sovereignty is incredible. I think it’s an amazing thing.”
He added: “I think that if there is a country for Jewish people that protects the Jewish people, that is of utmost importance, especially with the vile and rampant antisemitism that exists across the world that I see every day and that I try and combat as much as possible.
“But doing that and then simultaneously repressing another group of people, dehumanising them and brutalising them, then the question of whether your state has the right to exist becomes secondary.”
Students, charged and released with a date in court, are here now to collect their belongings. They’re missing bags, belts, shoes, all lost in the chaos of the night before.
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From the very heart of the protest encampment, our cameras had captured the chaos.
Officers moving in. Tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse. Stun grenades to disorientate.
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They were scenes which have stirred an already fevered debate about Israel and Gaza, yes, but about much more too. About America, about policing, and about free speech too.
President Biden said yesterday: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest.”
‘Wrong’ say the protesters. Their movement, they say, is the very essence of protest; of civil disobedience which is threaded through US college campus history.
They reject any notion that they are threatening or violent. Yet the deeply divisive history of the Israel-Palestine conflict ensures that the beholder will so often be offended by the actions of the other side.
It was the students perceived antisemitism through their pro-Palestinian slogans which had drawn a group of pro-Israel protesters to the encampment earlier in the week.
The chaos of that night was reflected in a statement by the university’s student radio station which has been covering every twist.
“Counter protestors used bear mace, professional-grade fireworks and clubs to brutalize hundreds of our peers, UCLA turned a blind eye. Police were not called until hours into the onslaught and stood aside for over an hour as counter-protestors enacted racial, physical and chemical violence,” the statement from the UCLA Radio Managerial team said.
Watching the clear-up after the nighttime police sweep of the protesters I spotted two people embracing. A young man and an older woman.
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Professor recalls violent arrest at protest
It turned out to be a thread of history. One was a student who’d been arrested the night before.
The other was a student from a past time. Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history.
“I’m so proud of these people here. I’m so proud,” she told me.
“You know the civil unrest of the students back in ’68 and it continued for several years, it actually changed the course of the Vietnam War and hopefully this is going to do the same thing.”
But then, back at the police station, a conversation that hints at the wider challenges for America.
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‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country. For him, no government is better than any on offer.
“The problem with our system is that we can’t rely on the police, we can’t rely on the military to keep us safe.
“When we need to make our voices heard, we need to make them heard, and the only way to do that without being repressed is by keeping each other safe and I think that last night and the last few months have really exemplified that,” he told me.
These protests are about more than Gaza. They are aligning a spectrum of dissent.
A scuba dive boat captain has been jailed for four years for criminal negligence over a fire that killed 34 people.
Captain Jerry Boylan was also sentenced to three years supervised release by a federal judge in Los Angeles, California.
The blaze on the vessel named Conception in September 2019 was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent American history.
Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer last year.
The charge is a pre-Civil War statute, known colloquially as seaman’s manslaughter, and was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
In a sentencing memo, lawyers for Boylan – who is appealing – wrote: “While the loss of life here is staggering, there can be no dispute that Mr Boylan did not intend for anyone to die.
“Indeed, Mr Boylan lives with significant grief, remorse, and trauma as a result of the deaths of his passengers and crew.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day voyage, sinking less than 30 metres from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and a crew member died, trapped below deck.