President Biden Signs Bill To Ban TikTok If Parent Company Doesn’t Sell It

US President Joe Biden has signed the bill that could ban TikTok in the US unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance agrees to sell it. The bill, which includes the  “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” was first approved by the Senate yesterday, and it’s part of a larger package of measures aiming to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan

Now that the bill has been signed into law by the US President, ByteDance has 270 days to sell TikTok to another company. However, it can be granted a 90-day extension if it’s already making progress on this mandatory divestiture. Otherwise, the social media app will be banned from US app stores, and Internet hosting services will be prohibited from providing access to TikTok in the US.

The “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” is a significant escalation of a saga that began many years ago when the Trump administration saw the social media platform as a national security threat. While previous reports suggested that ByteDance officials had accessed TikTok data from Americans, the app and its algorithm are also being accused of encouraging addictive behaviors.

In a statement published on X, TikTok said that it would challenge the “unconstitutional ban” in court. “We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail,” the company said. “The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation.”

Our Statement on Enactment of the TikTok Ban:

This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court. We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail. The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S.…

— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) April 24, 2024

In this same statement, the company also emphasized that “This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.” In a video reaction to the US bill, TikTok CEO Shou Chew used the same freedom of speech argument that Elon Musk previously used to slam the possible US TikTok ban. “It’s actually ironic because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom,” the TikTok CEO said today.