Last night, the Senate passed a bill that among other things, forces TikTok owner ByteDance to either sell the company or be banned in the US:
The bill, which President Joe Biden is expected to sign into law, stemmed from concerns among lawmakers about potential data access and surveillance by China through the app. It had already passed the House of Representatives over the weekend and the president has alreayd indicated that he will sign it into law when it lands on his desk.
“For years we have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted,” Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said following the bill’s passage.
“A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America.”
Now, ByteDance has nine months to sell the company, with the possibility of a three-month extension if a sale is under way.
For the 170 million American users of the app, a ban would not automatically remove TikTok from their cellphones.
Instead, the app would be unavailable on Apple and Google’s app stores and so users won’t be able to download it and TikTok won’t be able to send updates or fixes.
TikTok has told its employees that it will fight attempts to ban the app in the US.
Now that this appears to be the start of the endgame in this fight, one has to wonder where this goes next. I am certain that other countries are watching this because they would be looking to do something similar to TikTok. Which is bad news for TikTok of course. Which is why I fully expect them to fight hard all the way to the Supreme Court.
As an aside, I personally don’t think this bill goes far enough. What good is a ban if the app is still on people’s phones because they would still be using the app, and the risks that were outlined above are still there? For this ban to be truly effective, Apple and Google should be required to not only remove the app from their app stores, but force it off people’s phones as well. I guess Congress didn’t want to go there as that would be a dangerous precedent as they would be telling people what apps they can and can’t have on their phones. Even though they’re basically doing that right now by banning TikTok.
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This entry was posted on April 24, 2024 at 8:29 am and is filed under Commentary with tags TikTok. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Senate Passes Bill To Ban TikTok
Last night, the Senate passed a bill that among other things, forces TikTok owner ByteDance to either sell the company or be banned in the US:
The bill, which President Joe Biden is expected to sign into law, stemmed from concerns among lawmakers about potential data access and surveillance by China through the app. It had already passed the House of Representatives over the weekend and the president has alreayd indicated that he will sign it into law when it lands on his desk.
“For years we have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted,” Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said following the bill’s passage.
“A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America.”
Now, ByteDance has nine months to sell the company, with the possibility of a three-month extension if a sale is under way.
For the 170 million American users of the app, a ban would not automatically remove TikTok from their cellphones.
Instead, the app would be unavailable on Apple and Google’s app stores and so users won’t be able to download it and TikTok won’t be able to send updates or fixes.
TikTok has told its employees that it will fight attempts to ban the app in the US.
Now that this appears to be the start of the endgame in this fight, one has to wonder where this goes next. I am certain that other countries are watching this because they would be looking to do something similar to TikTok. Which is bad news for TikTok of course. Which is why I fully expect them to fight hard all the way to the Supreme Court.
As an aside, I personally don’t think this bill goes far enough. What good is a ban if the app is still on people’s phones because they would still be using the app, and the risks that were outlined above are still there? For this ban to be truly effective, Apple and Google should be required to not only remove the app from their app stores, but force it off people’s phones as well. I guess Congress didn’t want to go there as that would be a dangerous precedent as they would be telling people what apps they can and can’t have on their phones. Even though they’re basically doing that right now by banning TikTok.
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This entry was posted on April 24, 2024 at 8:29 am and is filed under Commentary with tags TikTok. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.