After a swift vote in the House of Representatives earlier this week, the United States Senate has now passed the National Security Package which includes the controversial potential ban on TikTok in the US. Following the US legislative process, the bill is now heading to President Joe Biden who has previously committed to signing it into law.
Should that scenario play out TikTok parent company ByteDance would be left with two choices – divest into a US-based company in the next twelve months or face an effective ban on TikTok in the US. TikTok has been campaigning against the ban and forced sale on the premises of violating the free speech rights of its 170 million American users.
Members of the House and Senate have been campaigning against TikTok as a medium of “Chinese propaganda”, being “tied to foreign adversaries” and “providing significant amounts of user data to the Chinese Communist Party”.
