The United States has issued a deadline to Chinese tech giant ByteDance, the owner of popular social media app TikTok, demanding it to divest TikTok’s assets in the country within approximately nine months or face a ban. This move comes amidst concerns that China could access Americans’ data or conduct surveillance through TikTok.
The decision was preceded by legislative actions in the US Senate, which voted to send a bill to President Joe Biden requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok’s assets in the US. The bill, which has already passed in the US House of Representatives, gained significant support with a vote of 79 to 18 in favor.
Senator Marco Rubio, the leading Republican on the Intelligence Committee, voiced his support for the measure, highlighting the dangers of allowing the Chinese Communist Party to control such a widely used app in the US. “A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America,” Rubio stated.
In response to the ban threat and concerns about data sharing, TikTok reiterated that it has not shared and would not share US user data with the Chinese government. The company argued that the legislation effectively amounts to a ban, potentially violating the free speech rights of its 170 million American users.
“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,” TikTok informed its employees, indicating its readiness to challenge the legislation in court.
Sources By Agencies
