app
Tiktok law also approved by the US Senate
Tiktok is threatened with banishment from American app stores. photo
© Robert Michael/dpa
Things are getting serious for Tiktok in the USA: The popular short video app is threatened with banishment from American app stores. A US law intended to force a change of ownership could soon come into force.
The US law that requires a change of ownership of the short video app Tiktok is supposed to be enforced, has also passed the Senate as the second chamber of Congress. This means it is now on the table of President Joe Biden, who has already announced that he will sign it. The China-based Bytedance Group would then have a maximum of one year to separate from Tiktok. Otherwise, the app should be banned from American app stores. It is unclear whether the plan can stand up in US courts. An earlier threat to ban it failed there.
The law was passed by the Senate on Wednesday night with a large majority of 79 to 18 votes. Bytedance is viewed across all parties in the USA as a Chinese company that must bow to the will of the Chinese Communist Party. That’s why there are warnings that Chinese authorities could gain large-scale access to data from American users – and also use the platform for political influence. Tiktok has been denying this for years.
Particularly popular among young users
The law, which was passed for the second time in the House of Representatives a few days ago, is this time part of a package that, among other things, is intended to make new aid possible for Ukraine, which is attacked by Russia. That’s why it got through the Senate quickly on the second attempt.
The law puts Biden’s Democrats in a quandary: On the one hand, the president wants to take a tough position towards China, and on the other hand, the app is popular among young users, whose votes he needs for re-election in November. Biden’s campaign team only opened a Tiktok account this year.
Headquarters in Beijing, headquarters in the Cayman Islands
Tiktok emphasizes that it does not see itself as a subsidiary of a Chinese company. Bytedance is 60 percent owned by Western investors. The company headquarters are on the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. However, US politicians counter that the Chinese founders, with a share of 20 percent, maintained control thanks to higher voting rights and that Bytedance’s headquarters are in Beijing, where they cannot escape the influence of the authorities.
According to its own information, Tiktok has 170 million users in the USA. During his term as US President, Donald Trump tried to force a sale of Tiktok’s US business to American investors with threats of a ban.
But the plan failed primarily because US courts suspected the plans for a Tiktok ban to violate the freedom of speech enshrined in the US Constitution. A current law in the state of Montana that was supposed to ban Tiktok from the app stores there is also on hold. Trump has now backed away from calls for a ban.