THERE are not many issues that attract bipartisan support in Washington these days. TikTok, however, is one. On Wednesday (Mar 13), the House of Representatives passed a bill to ban the social media app unless it is sold by its Chinese-based parent ByteDance – by a resounding 352-65 votes.

This might yet be blocked by the Senate or the courts; when Montana lawmakers tried to ban TikTok last year, there were legal appeals. Alternatively, ByteDance might agree on a sale – although this could be hard if antitrust issues hang over natural buyers, such as Microsoft. What’s more, Beijing says it opposes a sale, probably because it does not want to lose control of TikTok’s content algorithm (which is arguably a bigger national security flashpoint than data storage).

Either way, Wednesday’s vote has tossed TikTok into limbo in a way that most observers (including myself) did not expect a few months ago, given that this could anger many youthful voters – something Congress rarely wants to do.