TikTok Ban
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act[1] passed the House of Representatives on March 13, 2024. This analysis will explain in plain language what it can be made to do.
Definitions
These definitions are arranged so that a definition that relies on another definition does not appear before it, and will be in bold when used in the remainder of this analysis.
A "foreign adversary country" is China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran[2].
"Controlled by a foreign adversary" means residing, headquartered, having "its principal place of business in" or organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country (2(h)(1)).
A "covered company" is one that operates a website, desktop or mobile app, or AR/VR app:
- where you can make an account to "generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content" (2(h)(2)(A)(i))
- has more than 1,000,000 active users in 2 of the 3 months before the determination is made (2(h)(2)(A)(ii))
- lets any user generate or distribute content that other users of it can see (2(h)(2)(A)(iii))
- lets any user see content generated by other users (2(h)(2)(A)(iv))
However, it excludes apps for product, business, and travel reviews.
A "foreign adversary controlled application" is a website, desktop or mobile app, "or augmented or immersive technology application" that is run by:
- ByteDance, TikTok, any subsidiary or successor of them that is controlled by a foreign adversary, or any entity owned or controlled by them (2(h)(3)(A)).
- any covered company that is controlled by a foreign adversary and "is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States" after a public notice and a report to Congress at least 30 days before the determination (2(h)(3)(B)).
A "qualified divestiture" is one which "the President determines, through an interagency process" would stop a foreign adversary controlled application from being controlled by a foreign adversary and "any operational relationship" from being established between its US operations and any of its former affiliates that remain controlled by a foreign adversary, such as any "cooperation with respect to" content recommendation algorithms or data sharing (2(h)(6)).
An "internet hosting service" includes VPNs, DNS, and file and cloud hosting (2(h)(5)).
