President Joe Biden enacted a provision this Wednesday that would force TikTok to be sold or prohibited in the United States.
The measure includes a provision that gives ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of TikTok, China, nine months to sell that social network or face a nationwide ban in the United States. The president can grant a one-time 90-day extension, which would extend the deadline to one year, if he certifies that there is a path to divestment and “significant progress” toward its execution.
On Tuesday, April 23, the Senate approved a law that would force the parent company of TikTok, based in China, to sell the social media platform under threat of ban. The controversial move by US lawmakers is expected to face legal challenges and harm content creators who rely on the app for income.
The TikTok law was included in a broader $95 billion package that provides help Ukraine and Israel, and it was approved by 79 votes in favor and 18 against.
House Republicans They decided last week to include the TikTok bill in the foreign aid package to accelerate its approval in Congress, after negotiations with the Senate, where an earlier version of the bill had stalled.
That version gave ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, six months to divest its stake in the platform. But it raised skepticism from some key lawmakers, concerned about the short timeline for a complex operation that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.
The revised legislation extends the deadline, giving ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, and a possible three-month extension if the sale is underway. The bill would also prohibit the company from controlling TikTok’s secret sauce: the algorithm that feeds users videos based on their interests and that has turned the platform into a trend-setting phenomenon.
TikTok has not yet responded to a request for comment made Tuesday night.
US lawmakers fear Chinese espionage
The passage of the legislation is the culmination of Washington’s long-held bipartisan fears about Chinese threats and ownership of TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans.
For years, lawmakers and government officials have expressed concern that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over American users’ data, or influence them by removing or promoting certain content on TikTok.
“Congress is not acting to punish ByteDance, TikTok or any other specific company,” he said. the president of the Senate Commerce Committee, Maria Cantwell. “Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, malicious operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our soldiers and our U.S. government personnel.”
Opponents of the bill say the Chinese government could easily obtain information about Americans in other ways, including through commercial data brokers that traffic in personal information. The foreign aid package includes a provision prohibiting data brokers from selling or renting “sensitive personally identifiable data” to North Korea, China, Russia, Iran or entities of those countries.
However, it has received some criticism, including those from the American Civil Liberties Unionwhich claims the wording is too broad and could cover journalists and others who publish personal information.
