WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - Presidential candidate

Donald Trump raised concerns about banning TikTok ahead of a

vote next week by the U.S. House of Representatives that would

give TikTok owner ByteDance about six months to divest the

popular short video app.

The former Republican president seeking a return to the

White House wrote late Thursday on social media site Truth

Social "if you get rid of TikTok, Facebook... will double their

business," and added he does not want Facebook "doing better."

The campaign did not immediately comment on whether Trump

has a position on the legislation. Facebook parent Meta

declined to comment.

The Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday approved

legislation on a 50-0 vote to crackdown on TikTok, which has

about 170 million U.S. users.

The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok; if

it did not, app stores operated by Apple ( AAPL ), Google

and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide

web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.

In 2020, Trump sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat

but was blocked by the courts.

Trump said in an August 2020 executive order that TikTok

data collection "threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party

access to Americans' personal and proprietary information -

potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal

employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal

information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage."

TikTok, which says it has not and would not share U.S. user

data with the Chinese government, argues the House bill amounts

to a ban and it is not clear if China would approve any sale, or

that it could be divested in six months.

"This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total

ban of TikTok in the United States," the company said after the

vote. "The government is attempting to strip 170 million

Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression."

The app is popular and getting legislation approved by both

the House and Senate in an election year may be difficult. Last

month, Democratic President Joe Biden's re-election campaign

joined TikTok.

Trump's campaign has not joined TikTok.