PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley told KOIN 6 News that he is considering voting in favor of the “Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” the hotly debated bill that, if signed into law, would allegedly ban TikTok in the United States.

The U.S. House of Representatives easily passed the bill by a margin of 352-65 on Wednesday. Oregon lawmakers who voted for the bill include Republicans Cliff Bentz and Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Democrat Andrea Salinas.

The bill still needs to pass through the senate before it can reach President Joe Biden’s desk. Merkley said that he plans to take a “very close” look at the bill before making his decision.

“My instinct is this: There’s always going to be something like TikTok in the social media world,” Merkley said. “But foreign ownership raises security concerns.”

Merkley said that he is researching the national security concerns surrounding the Beijing-based social media app, which is owned by the Chinese internet technology company ByteDance Ltd.

“I have just been reading about a number of those abnormalities that have occurred in TikTok that suggest that China may be involved in changing the protocols for how messages are distributed or using TikTok for propaganda,” he said. “Or, to make American communities angry with each other, so create domestic discord.”

Merkley compared the TikTok bill to tactics used to protect America’s ports.

“We make sure that our ports are owned by a group in which we are not concerned about the groups sabotaging the role of our ports if we’re at war or anything else, because ports are essential infrastructure,” Merkley said. “Maybe social media is a little like that: If you get to a certain size, you want to make sure that foreign nations aren’t using it surreptitiously to spread disinformation, propaganda or hate.”

Merkley said that he plans to talk to the U.S. Intelligence Community to better understand the details of the bill. For now, the senator said that he is leaning toward approving the bill and focusing on the “domestic ownership” of popular social media services.

“You want to make sure there’s not a foreign government owning it that is manipulating how information is spread,” he said. “Even if they’re not collecting information and exporting it outside the United States, if [they have] any control over the protocol on how information is shared, what information is accentuated and what gets to whom, they can really change what America is thinking about [regarding] a particular issue: A power you don’t want a foreign nation to have to try to manipulate Americans.”