A US congressional panel has approved a bill that would force TikTok's China-based parent company to sell the app within six months or face a ban.
It was approved unanimously 50-0 on Thursday by the Energy and Commerce Committee. The Senate would need to approve it before it became law. The bill makes specific reference to ByteDance - which would be forced under the terms of the bill to sell TikTok, or face removal from mobile app stores in the US."America's foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States," said committee chairman Mike Gallagher, a Republican of Wisconsin.
But in a statement posted to X, TikTok described the move as "an outright ban... no matter how much the authors try to disguise it".