The US Congress has approved a bill that would ban TikTok from the United States unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance sells its US operations. The bill has been passed by a vote of 79 to 18 and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden, who has indicated his support for the legislation.
If the bill is passed, ByteDance will have approximately nine months to sell TikTok’s US operations. Failure to do so would result in the app being banned from US markets and removed from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store.
The bill has been brought forth over concerns that TikTok poses a national security threat and could be used as a tool for Chinese espionage. TikTok has consistently denied these claims, stating that it does not share user data with the Chinese government.
The bill was included as part of a US$95 billion foreign aid package, including military assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. In response to the package, TikTok wrote on its website last week: ‘It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually.’
TikTok has yet to comment on the bill being passed on Tuesday (April 23). However, in an internal email obtained by the Financial Times, the company said that it intends to fight the legislation and that ‘this is the beginning, not the end of this long process’.
