The US government signed a bill earlier, passing a law banning TikTok in the US. According to the bill, the TikTok platform’s Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance, must sell the platform in nine months or face a ban.
This bill is in response to fear from US politicians who are scared that the company might share their users’ data with the Chinese government, although TikTok has repeatedly assured that this isn’t true.
As part of the $95bn aid package from Ukraine and Israel, the Senate approved the bill on Tuesday. The bill was signed off early by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again,” said Shou Zi Chew, the chief executive of TikTok.
The company added, “This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court.
“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail.”
The law could also face opposition from TikTok creators who rely on it for their income, while China has previously said it would oppose a forced sale.
The US government will also face opposition from different TikTok creators who are depending on TikTok for their income.
TikTok has taken America by storm. It is one of the fastest-growing technology correspondents and has attracted 170 million US users. But before now, I’ve been concerned in Washington about the social media platform’s China-based ownership.
The platform has become an influential platform fuelled by the popularity among Gen-Z. It has also become a target for both political spectrum in Washington as well as other countries due to the fear over their users’ data. The US politicians are so concerned that the Chinese government might force the TikTok CEO to surrender their users’ data.
Currently, over four million US federal government employees with TikTok accounts on their devices have been banned by the US, with no exceptions for law enforcement, national security, or security research purposes. In the UK, a similar ban has also occurred on civil servants.
Similarly, India was the first country to ban TikTok in 2020 following a violent clash that occurred on the Indian-china borders, where almost twenty Indian soldiers were killed. It will interest you that the TikTok app is not available in the app store in China; they use Douyin instead, and the Chinese government tightly controls the interest.
The TikTok CEO has already directly appealed to US users to stop the bill and also accused the US government of attempting to shut down the platform last month.
In a video posted, Shou Zi Chew told users the bill “will lead to a ban of TikTok in the United States”, also stating that: “Even the bill’s sponsors admit that’s their goal.”
There are limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security, and research purposes.
Senate commerce committee chair Maria Cantwell said the move to force TikTok’s sale was not aimed at “punishing” ByteDance, TikTok, or other companies.
In the Senate committee chair, Maria said that the ban on TikTok was never a punishment to protect Byte Dance or any other company but to protect the country from external forces.
“Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our US government personnel,” she said.
Discover more from Infodorm
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.