Chinese app TikTok has been in talks for a ban in the United States. The House passed the bill a few weeks ago, but its future depended on the Senate. The bill was bundled with a $95 billion foreign aid package. It has made its path clear with 79-18 votes in the Senate. If TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, does not sell the short video app, it will have to face a nationwide ban.
The United States Senate has passed a bill that forces TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the popular video application. Not only this, but if TikTok is not segregated and removed from the possession of ByteDance, it will face a nationwide ban.
The bill was combined with a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and received approval with 79-18. It is still yet to receive approval from the president of the United States, Joe Biden. It is likely that he will sign the bill.
While this decision will have a drastic impact on the lives of content creators who rely on TikTok for their income, it aims to avoid a national threat.
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Marco Rubio, the US Senator from Florida from the Republican Party, also commented on the move, as reported by Reuters.
For years we’ve allowed the Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted.
A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America,
TikTok, meanwhile, still claims that it did not compromise the safety or privacy of any United States user. The company argues that a potential ban would violate the free speech rights of its users in the United States. Although it did not make any public statements, it assured its employees that they would try to block this decision.
Reuters reported an email from the company to its staff. It stated,
We’ll continue to fight, as this legislation is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans on TikTok… This is the beginning, not the end of this long process.
Reports suggest that soon after the bill was passed, President Biden said that he would sign the bill into law on Wednesday.
