Popular social media app TikTok could soon be banned in the US. The US Senate on Tuesday voted to approve a bill to ban the Chinese app unless its parent company ByteDance sells its stake in the app.
The development will likely result in a court battle between the US and TikTok, which argues that the legislation violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
TikTok has its largest user base in the US with almost 170 million users.
The bill will now be presented to President Joe Biden, who is considered a supporter of the TikTok divest-or-ban measure, and has said that he will sign it into law.
The bill was earlier passed by the US House of Representatives and sent to the Senate for its approval.
According to a story by the news portal Variety, US lawmakers have expressed concern about TikTok’s Chinese ownership, suggesting that the country’s regime could use the app to encroach on American citizens’ privacy or to put forward pro-China propaganda.
Responding to the passage of the bill, TikTok’s head of public policy for the US, Michael Beckerman, said that the company will approach the court once the bill is signed into law.
Beckerman also criticised the TikTok divest-or-ban measure as “an unprecedented deal worked out between the Republican Speaker (Mike Johnson) and President Biden.”
According to TikTok, if the bill becomes law, then it would infringe the free-speech rights of its 170 million US users and “devastate” the estimated 7 million American businesses on the platform. TikTok also claimed that it contributes $24 billion to the US economy annually.
The US is not the first country that has taken steps to ban TikTok. In 2020, after the Galwan Valley clashes, India also banned TikTok, citing national security concerns.
However, many still stay active and post on the app in India via VPN. The same would be the solution for TikTok users in the US if the app is eventually banned in the country.
In November 2023, Nepal’s government also banned the app, citing security concerns.
In addition, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have banned TikTok from federal government-owned devices.
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