Within moments of Biden signing the bill, CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video, “Rest assured—we are not going anywhere.” ByteDance, which is based in China, has 270 days to sell off its U.S. assets or face a ban. “The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again.”
Biden’s signature sets a deadline for a sale of January 19, which is one day before his term ends. However, he could extend the deadline by three months if he thinks ByteDance is making progress. Biden is running against former President Donald Trump for a second term.
Karine Jean-Pierre, a spokesman for the White House, said on Tuesday, “We do not want to see a ban.” She also said, “This is about PRC ownership,” which means the People’s Republic of China.
In 2020, Trump tried to ban TikTok and WeChat, an app owned by Tencent and based in China, in the United States, but the judges stopped him. Trump, the Republican candidate for president, changed his mind and said on Monday that Biden was “pushing” for a ban on TikTok and would be to blame if one were put in place. He asked people to pay attention.
“Do not get it wrong—this is a ban on TikTok,” Chew said, stressing that TikTok would keep running while the company fought the limits.
A lot of experts are not sure if anyone would be able to afford to buy TikTok or if the Chinese and American governments would agree to the sale.
Senators from all over the United States voted heavily in favor of the bill late Tuesday night. They were afraid that China could use the app to access American data or spy on them. On Saturday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed it.
Washington and Beijing have been at war over the internet and technology for four years, and the fight over TikTok is a major front in that war. This past week, Apple said that China had told them to take Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads off of China’s App Store because of safety worries for Chinese citizens.
TikTok is going to fight the bill in court using the First Amendment as an argument. TikTok users are also likely to sue again. In November, a U.S. judge in Montana stopped a state ban on TikTok on the grounds of free speech.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, banning or forcing TikTok to sell would “set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms.”
Experts say that the new law will likely make it easier for the Biden administration to ban TikTok if ByteDance does not take down the app.
ByteDance would not be able to legally sell TikTok, so Apple, Alphabet’s Google, and other app shops would not be able to offer it or host ByteDance-controlled apps or TikTok’s website.