The US Senate voted to send legislation to Joe Biden which requires Chinese owner ByteDance to divest TikTok’s asserts in the country within about nine months or face a ban. The measure has already been passed by the US House of Representatives. This came after concerns that China may have access Americans’ data or surveil them using the app. Joe Biden has said he will sign the measure into law much before the US Senate voted 79 to 18 in favor of the bill.
Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said, “For years we’ve allowed the Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted. A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America.”
TikTok said that it has not shared and would not share US user data with the Chinese government. The company has also argued that the law amounts to a ban which would violate the US free speech rights of its users and has told its employees that it would quickly go to court to try to block the legislation, news agency Reuters reported.
“We’ll continue to fight, as this legislation is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans on TikTok… This is the beginning, not the end of this long process,” TikTok told employees.
