US may ban TikTok

The passage of a significant bill by the US House of Representatives could potentially result in the banning of TikTok in America. This legislation mandates ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of the social media platform, to divest its controlling stake within six months, failing which TikTok would face prohibition in the US. Although the bill received broad bipartisan support in the House, it still awaits approval from the Senate and the president’s signature to become law. Lawmakers have expressed longstanding apprehensions regarding China’s influence over TikTok, given ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters and its obligation under Chinese national security law to share data with authorities.

Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher, a co-author of the bill, emphasized the imperative of preventing a scenario where a significant news platform in the US is controlled or owned by a company indebted to the Chinese Communist Party. Despite TikTok’s efforts to allay regulatory concerns by segregating user data from ByteDance employees in China, a Wall Street Journal investigation in January revealed lingering vulnerabilities in the system, facilitating unofficial data sharing between TikTok in the US and ByteDance in China. Notable incidents, such as ByteDance employees in China accessing a journalist’s data to identify sources, have heightened concerns.

In response to the House vote, a spokesperson for TikTok accused lawmakers of hastily pushing through a “ban” following what they characterized as a “secret” process.

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