The US House of Representatives is tightening its course towards the Chinese company Bytedance: The Chamber of Congress passed a law that is intended to force a change of ownership of its short video app TikTok. But the US Senate has the final say.
The US House of Representatives wants to force the Chinese owner of TikTok to sell the popular video platform by law. A corresponding proposal has now cleared the first hurdle in the Chamber of Congress. This was approved with a large majority of 352 yes votes.
Now the bill goes to the US Senate, where the positions are still unclear. Some influential senators have spoken out against the bill. US President Joe Biden has already made it clear that he would sign the law.
Bytedance has 180 days to sell
The law could lead to TikTok being banned from American app stores if Chinese parent company Bytedance does not sell its short-video app within 180 days. Bytedance is viewed across all parties in the USA as a Chinese company that must bow to the will of the Chinese Communist Party. The company is suspected of giving the government in Beijing access to user data.
TikTok claims to have 170 million users in the USA. The company denies any ties to the Chinese government. The company also assured that it had restructured itself so that user data remained in the USA. TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew traveled to Washington before the vote and tried to prevent the draft from being passed at the last minute.
Beijing speaks of bullying
According to a media report, Bytedance is determined to exhaust all legal remedies against an impending ban in the USA before considering a sale. A separation from TikTok is seen as a last option, the financial service Bloomberg wrote on Tuesday, citing informed people.
In the run-up to the vote, Beijing criticized the proposed legislation as “bullying behavior” and warned vaguely that this approach would “inevitably cause trouble for the United States.”
US Constitution could prevent ban
Skeptics point out that the law is likely to keep the courts busy for years because it could be vulnerable to the freedom of speech enshrined in the US Constitution. Although US federal authorities have now banned TikTok from company cell phones due to data protection concerns, previous initiatives to ban the app nationwide had come to nothing.
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.
180 degree turn from Trump
Despite the debate about banning TikTok, US President Biden only made his own debut on the platform, which is particularly popular among young people, four weeks ago. Meanwhile, his predecessor Trump, who is challenging Biden in the 2024 presidential election, made a 180-degree turn in his attitude towards Messenger.
On Monday, he spoke on CNBC against a TikTok ban, arguing that it would only strengthen the US online giant Meta and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. At the same time, the right-wing populist denied that he had only changed his stance on TikTok because Bytedance investor Jeff Yass supported his election campaign with donations.