Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Monday he is planning to introduce legislation to give the Chinese parent company of TikTok more time to sell the app as the ban deadline looms less than a week away.
“As the Jan. 19 deadline approaches, TikTok creators and users across the nation are understandably alarmed,” Markey said in a Senate floor speech Monday. “They are uncertain about the future of the platform, their accounts, and the vibrant online communities they have cultivated.”
Markey, who urged President Biden last month to grant TikTok an extension to divest from parent company ByteDance, said the communities built on TikTok “cannot be replicated” on another platform.
He said he will soon introduce the “Extend the TikTok Deadline Act,” which would give ByteDance another 270 days to sell the app.
It comes as the Supreme Court weighs TikTok’s challenge to the divest-or-ban law, which passed Congress with wide bipartisan majorities and was signed by President Biden in April.
The law requires TikTok to face a ban in the U.S. beginning Sunday unless it divests from ByteDance.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments over the law last week, during which the justices expressed sympathy with the government’s national security concerns about the platform’s ties to China.
At the center of the case is whether the government’s national security interest outweigh the free speech concerns raised by TikTok and a group of creators that challenged the law as violating the First Amendment.
The high court has yet to issue a decision on the matter.
Markey acknowledged TikTok has “its problems” related to privacy and the mental health of young users and pledged to hold TikTok accountable.
“But a TikTok ban would impose serious consequences on millions of Americans who depend on the app for social connections and their economic livelihood,” he said. “We cannot allow that to happen.”
Markey, along with Sen. Ran Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), submitted an amicus brief last month urging the Supreme Court to not uphold the ban. They argued the ban is not backed up by evidence and violates the First Amendment.
