The clock has begun to tick in the United States against TikTok. The same law that has approved new aid funds for Ukraine and Israel, and that came into force this Wednesday, also contains a provision that forces ByteDance, the Chinese technology company that owns the popular short video application, to sell it. Otherwise, the app will be prohibited within this country.
The new law gives ByteDance a period of nine months in principle to get rid of its most popular creation in the West. Despite this deadline, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, can grant an extension of three more months, up to a full year, if it appears to him that sufficient progress has been made.
The White House insists that the emphasis of the measure is on the need for ByteDance to get rid of the app, not in the desire to prohibit it. “What we focus on when applying this law now is working for divestment in a manner consistent with the intent of the law and with the national security concerns that led to its approval,” said the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, at a press conference.
Among the concerns of legislators are complaints about the addictive behavior that the app cause among its users, especially among adolescents, and its supposed harmful effects on mental health. But, also, the one that is Chinese owned. Critics of TikTok denounce that the Chinese government could easily obtain the data of the millions of American users who have downloaded the application.
TikTok replies that it has introduced control mechanisms on its platform so that parents can feel calm about their children’s use of it. He also denies allowing the Chinese government access to US data, and maintains that the ban would violate the right to freedom of expression.
ByteDance’s is a position that seemed unlikely until just a week ago. The House of Representatives, dominated by Republicans and where all seats are at stake in next November’s elections, had approved a bill in March that ordered the sale and gave a six-month deadline. But the Senate, controlled by Democrats and where only a third of the seats are contested in the November elections, had not shown a great appetite to pick up that gauntlet and present the measure to a vote in the plenary. The leader of the Democratic majority, Charles Schumer, had not specified whether he would ever present it for consideration.
But anything is possible in love, war, and political negotiations in the United States Congress. In the battle to get the ultra-conservative sector of the Republican Party to swallow $61 billion in aid to Ukraine (about €57 billion), something they had been rejecting for months, the proposal on TikTok was included in the bill. much older. Once there, the Senate had to approve it if it wanted to achieve its main objective, funds for kyiv.
The longer period now granted to the Chinese parent company is part of an attempt to make the measure more acceptable to those who oppose it.
Animosity grows
Over the last year, animosity against TikTok has only grown in political circles in Washington, despite intense public relations work by ByteDance and despite the fact that a good part of the political class uses the application in their electoral campaigns, starting with Biden himself. TikTok president Shou Zi Chew has appeared before congressional committees twice.
The new law now raises a multitude of questions. First of all, if ByteDance will put its lucrative creation up for sale. Or if the Chinese Government will allow it to get rid of it, or of the algorithm that is the envy of the sector for its adjustment to the tastes of users, for the benefit of another company in the United States.
At first, part of the strategy of the app seems to be similar to what the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, applies in his trials: buying time in court. If the former president, who has spoken in favor of TikTok in the past, were the winner in the November elections, it is possible that he would choose to overturn or ignore the rule.
In a statement, the application maintains that it will take the new law to court, something that could open a process of months, if not years. According to TikTok, it is “unfortunate” that lawmakers “are using the excuse of significant foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again force through a ban bill that would harm the free speech rights of 170 million Americans—users of the app in this country, according to ByteDance—would harm seven million companies and shut down a platform that contributes $24 billion annually to the U.S. economy.”
“As we fight this unconstitutional ban, we will continue to invest and innovate to ensure that TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can come to share their experiences, enjoy themselves, and find inspiration.”