The short video app TikTok has to break away from its Chinese parent company Bytedance in the USA. The Senate also decided this. The company now has one year – otherwise there is a risk of a ban.
The US law that is intended to force a change of ownership of the short video app TikTok has also passed the Senate, 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 US app stores. It is unclear whether the plan can stand up in US courts. An earlier threat to ban it failed there.
Accusation of influence peddling
The bill was passed by the Senate overnight 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. There are therefore warnings that Chinese authorities could gain large-scale access to US users’ data and also use the platform for political influence. TikTok has denied this for years.
“For years, we allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control one of America’s most popular apps, and that was dangerously short-sighted,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee. “A new law will force the Chinese owner to sell the app. That’s good for America.”
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.
TikTok: Are not a subsidiary of a Chinese company
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.
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.
TikTok has not yet commented immediately after the vote. The company had already announced at the weekend that it wanted to take legal action against the law.
US courts stopped similar attempted ban
TikTok claims to have 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.