On Tuesday, the US Senate passed a bill mandating that the enormously popular social media app TikTok either leave its Chinese parent company ByteDance or be removed from the US market.
The law was a part of a $95 billion package of foreign aid that also included military support for Taiwan, Israel, and the Ukraine. It has now passed Congress and is on President Joe Biden’s desk.
Western and American officials have expressed concern over TikTok’s growing popularity among youth, claiming Beijing can use it to gather information and eavesdrop on users. In the US alone, there are 170 million users of it.
Additionally, these critics claim that TikTok serves as a propaganda tool and is beholden to Beijing. The firm and China vehemently refute these allegations.
Three days after the bill passed the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support, the Senate passed it by a vote of 79 to 18, potentially leading to the unusual measure of banning a firm from functioning in the US market.
Biden has declared that he will ratify the bill.
Early this month, during a rare phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he expressed his worries regarding TikTok.
When the House vote on Saturday took place, TikTok voiced its displeasure, calling it “unfortunate” that lawmakers were attempting to “jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy, annually.”
As per the bill, ByteDance would have to either sell the app within a year or face exclusion from the US app stores operated by Apple and Google.
Former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who worked under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, has expressed interest in buying TikTok and has gathered a group of investors.
American officials have been pursuing TikTok for a long time because they believe Beijing can snoop on American users through the app. But legal action can result from a ban.
The US president can label such applications as a threat to national security if they are under the control of a hostile nation, according to a bill enacted by Congress.
X’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who formerly owned Twitter, spoke out against TikTok’s ban on Friday, stating that “doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression.”
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