What you need to know
- After swiftly passing through the House and Senate, U.S. President Joe Biden has signed a foreign aid package that includes a bill targeting TikTok.
- The bill gives TikTok owner ByteDance a year to divest the app, or else mobile app stores will be forced to remove it.
- TikTok CEO has responded on the platform, saying that the app “isn’t going anywhere.”
President Biden has signed a bill into law that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, CNN reports. This comes just days after the House approved the bill and a day after the Senate voted in favor of it.
Nestled within a foreign aid package, the bill would make it so that app stores such as Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store can not legally offer TikTok within the United States. However, the ban does not happen overnight, as the bill gives TikTok owner ByteDance less than a year (270 days) to divest the app and find a potential buyer.
In response to the bill being signed into law, TikTok CEO Shou Chew took to the app to express his thoughts on the matter, saying, “We aren’t going anywhere.”
@tiktok Response to TikTok Ban Bill
Chew points out that of the more than 170 million users on the platform, more than 7 million business owners rely on TikTok for their livelihoods and urges users to post videos about how the app impacts their lives. He also notes that TikTok will continue to invest in keeping its community “vibrant, exciting, and safe.”
“Through our U.S. security efforts, we have built safeguards that no other peer company has made. We have invested billions of dollars to secure your data and keep our platform free from outside manipulation.”
TikTok has been under fire over the past several years for its close ties to the Chinese government via parent company ByteDance, with lawmakers expressing concerns about U.S. data. The U.S. has already banned the app on government-issued devices. Meanwhile, efforts to alleviate these concerns have largely failed, leaving the future of TikTok unclear for the app and its users. The question also remains whether or not ByteDance will be allowed to divest TikTok.
Android Central has reached out to TikTok for a comment on the bill being signed into law but did not receive a response in time for publication. However, a TikTok spokesperson told CNN that the company found the ban “unconstitutional” and that TikTok would continue to challenge the decision.