SELL OR BE BANNED MEASURE HITS TIKTOK
Move aimed at forcing ByteDance, the Chinese owner of social media app, to divest US operations within a year is signed into law by Joe Biden
The US took a decisive step to force ByteDance, the Chinese owner of popular social media app TikTok, to divest its US operations within a year or potentially face a nationwide ban.
The sell-or-be-banned measure cleared the US Senate by a margin of 79-18, garnering strong bipartisan support by including the legislation in a broader foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan worth US$95.3 billion. It was signed into law by President Joe Biden.
“Congress has passed my legislation to strengthen our national security and send a message to the world about the power of American leadership: we stand resolutely for democracy and freedom, and against tyranny and oppression,” Biden said after the final passage.
Biden then signed the bill into law yesterday – even though his campaign joined TikTok to court young voters ahead of a presumed rematch for the White House with his predecessor, Donald Trump.
The House on Saturday passed the legislation 360 to 58, attaching it to the sweeping foreign aid bill.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No 2 Republican in the chamber, said he was pleased the legislation would ban TikTok if “the company is not bought by an entity unaffiliated with the Chinese Communist Party”.
Reports that the Chinese embassy lobbied congressional staff against the bill, he added, were a “stunning confirmation of the value the Chinese government places on its ability to access Americans’ information and shape their TikTok experience”.
Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington state, who pushed to extend the divestment to one year from six months, claimed China had created “back doors” into apps on phones and laptops to target “vulnerable Americans”.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the measure “puts the US on the wrong side of the principles of fair competition and international trade rules”.
“How the US has handled TikTok enables the world to see clearly whether the US’ ‘rules’ and ‘order’ serve the whole world or only the US,” he added.
The action follows months of congressional fast-tracking and lobbying and deals a serious blow to the short-video platform that in recent years has proved a cultural sensation with more than 175 million American users.
Trump on Monday criticised Biden for the TikTok ban and urged young voters to consider the Democratic president’s position come November.
Biden would be “responsible for banning TikTok”, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “He is the one pushing it to close and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant.”
In 2020, then-president Trump had sought to ban TikTok, but was blocked by the courts.
When Trump reversed his position last month, news organisations noted the move came after he had met billionaire Jeff Yass, a major contributor to the Republican Party who reportedly holds a major financial stake in the company.
The congressional vote marks the first time the federal government has sought to shut down a social media company in the US, potentially setting a precedent for future actions against Chineseowned companies.
TikTok proved unable to allay concerns over data privacy and national security, coupled with allegations of mishandled user data and the company’s potential ties to the Chinese government. The app’s owner, ByteDance, is based in Beijing.
TikTok denies that Beijing authorities have demanded access to user data and instead argued that the planned ban infringes on freedoms of expression and innovation.
TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, Michael Beckerman, slammed the bill as “unconstitutional” and vowed to challenge it in the courts.
“We’ll continue to fight,” he wrote to company staff on Saturday. “This legislation is a clear violation of the firstamendment rights of the 170 million Americans on TikTok.”
James Lewis of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said he believed that “TikTok’s lobbying effort backfired and only hardened congressional opposition” – but that nothing would change for TikTok users at least for a year.
Lewis predicted a protracted legal battle and negotiations with Beijing on the terms of any potential public offering of shares for TikTok’s future.