President Joe Biden has expressed his intentions to sign off a bill that would ban TikTok in the US.
America has long had concerns about the video sharing app, which is used by 150 million people each month – making it the country with the largest TikTok audience.
In fact, calls to ban the social media platform from the States dates back years.
In 2022, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner, Brendan Carr, urged tech companies to remove TikTok from their American app stores.
And on Friday (March 8), President Biden told reporters if a bill came to pass, he’d ‘sign it’.
But what is Congress’ issue with the seemingly harmless platform?
According to Carr, the app ‘harvests swaths of sensitive data’ that’s then supposedly accessed in Beijing.
The developers behind TikTok – ByteDance – are partly owned by the Chinese state and have previously been criticised for its ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has been one of the main causes of concern for the US Government.
There are fears that China will use the data to its advantage for ‘espionage’.
As well as fears US users’ data are being used by the Chinese, lawmakers are worried that China controls the apps algorithms to push propaganda or misinformation.
TikTok has previously denied that it shares information with the Chinese government.
Previous attempts to ban TikTok fell through, but efforts have recently been renewed in the wake of the new ‘Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’ being put forward.
Part of the 12-page document explains that it was created ‘to protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications, such as TikTok and any successor application or service and any other application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Ltd. or an entity under the control of ByteDance Ltd.’
As to what ByteDance can do to stop TikTok being banned in the US, it will need to ‘change it’s basic ownership structure’.
Rep. Mike Gallagher said: “TikTok can continue to survive, people can continue to do all the dumb dance videos they want on the platform, friends and all that stuff.
“But the basic ownership structure has to change.”
Basically, the US wants ByteDance to be sold off so it no longer has ties to the Chinese Government.
Who they want it to be purchased by hasn’t be specified, however.
The newly proposed bill hasn’t been well received in China.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a statement: “This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it.
“This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”
The bill is slated to get a vote on the House floor next week.
