The US Senate has also approved the general ban on TikTok, meaning ByteDance has one year to comply with the new law after it has been signed by President Joe Biden. The company must de facto sell TikTok to an American party.
Senators in the American equivalent of the Senate voted 79 votes to 18 against the TikTok ban previously adopted by the House of Representatives. Biden also previously announced that he plans to sign the law, after which parent company ByteDance has a year to comply with the new law. The adopted bill is part of an aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, The Guardian writes. The platform itself does not agree with the American government's reasoning. In a statement to Tweakers, TikTok emphasizes several times that it has no ties with the Chinese government and that a large part of the company is already owned by American investors. The data and content of American users would also not be stored in China. According to the social medium, 7 million small businesses and 170 million Americans are unfairly affected by the ban.
In principle, the Chinese company has two options after the law comes into effect, namely selling TikTok to an American party or accepting the ban, after which app stores are no longer allowed to offer the social medium in the United States. Before this happens, the company will start legal proceedings to prevent banning. The court in the state of Montana previously concluded that the TikTok ban was unconstitutional.