TikTok has about 170 million subscribers in the United States. Image credit: Aljazeera
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has been forced to sell the app or else face being banned from American users following a bill passed by the U.S House of representatives on 13, March, 2024. The move to ban TikTok, however, was motivated by the need to “protect the data of American users of the app”.
The proposed law was argued for by votes of 352 deputies and 65 against it, where almost all members of the both wings, Democrats and Republicans, were in agreement to ban TikTok.
The U.S House of Representatives approves a proposed bill to ban TikTok
The United States government also made it clear that it will “penalise the two widely used mobile app stores (Google play Store and Apple Store) and cloud-based servers offering its citizens” access to the app.
Why does the US Government want to ban TikTok?
Well, this may range from political, economical, to security reasons: American government and its security agencies have debated over time their concerns about United States TikTok users’ data safety.
Security officials are of the opinion that the app’s ownership by a Chinese national, “in fact owes loyalty to the Beijing Communist Party and as a result cannot “ continue giving access to American users.
However, the bill officially titled “protecting Americans from foreign adversary controlled applications” is yet to be signed into law by president Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, TikTok has about 170 million subscribers in the United States with a large number of the government officials not willing to vote against it.
According to the White House, Mr Biden’s signature is the final determinant of seeing the bill become law.
The new bill, which has received critical deliberations from the United States government officials over the past few days, is clearly seeking to force the owner of TikTok “Bytedance” to forfeit or sell the social media business to an American national if it doesn’t want to be banned.
President Joe Biden’s campaign on the TikTok app:
According to Wall Street Journal, Washington’s renewed campaign on TikTok came as a surprise to the company after TikTok executives were reassured when Biden joined the app last month as part of his campaign for a second presidential term.
Also, reacting to the progress of the proposed law, the Chinese Foreign Minister said the government’s proposed bill to ban TikTok is “bullying behaviour” noting that the government action, if not carefully thought through, “will inevitably backfire on the United States”.
The TikTok executives response:
The social media company said TikTok does not have any ties to the Chinese government, and its company is restructured in such a way that the American users’ data remains inside the United States.
