By Will Feuer

Shares of U.S. social media companies rose after a new bill was introduced in Congress that could lead to a ban of TikTok in the U.S.

Shares of Snapchat's parent company Snap rose almost 8% to $12.01 in midday trading. Shares of Instagram and Facebook parent Meta rose almost 5% each, while shares of Pinterest rose more than 2%.

The bill introduced in Congress on Tuesday calls for Beijing-based ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok or face the platform being banned from app stores and web-hosting services in the U.S. ByteDance would have a little more than five months from the enactment of the bill to comply.

A TikTok spokesperson has described the bill as "an outright ban of TikTok," and said that it would "trample" on First Amendment rights and affect 170 million users and 5 million small businesses on the platform in the U.S.

The bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, who leads the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, addresses "foreign adversary-controlled applications," and flags what it says are national security risks posed by TikTok and "any other application or service developed or provided by Bytedance."

Write to Will Feuer at Will.Feuer@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-07-24 1244ET