President Joe Biden said he wants to sign a law that tells ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, to sell the app within six months.
The law will be voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives next week. Some people, like former President Donald Trump and the Justice Department, think ByteDance should sell TikTok instead of banning it.
The law got support from a House committee, but it’s not clear if the Senate will agree to it.
Biden said he’ll sign the law if the House passes it because it’s important to deal with worries about TikTok’s ownership and how it might affect national security.
Trump doesn’t want TikTok to be banned. He thinks getting rid of TikTok could help Facebook. He also thinks Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook, doesn’t like him because they suspended his accounts before.
But Trump’s team hasn’t officially said if they agree with the law, and Meta Platforms didn’t want to comment on it.
Biden supports TikTok divestiture bill (Via Katy Allen/Shutterstock)
The Justice Department supports the idea of ByteDance selling TikTok because they think it will help if there’s a legal fight. Former Vice President Mike Pence also likes the law because he’s worried about China having too much influence on young Americans.
If the law passes, ByteDance will have 165 days to sell TikTok. This will affect app stores and web hosting services.
TikTok says they don’t share user data with the Chinese government. They think the law is like a ban and could stop millions of Americans from expressing themselves freely.
Even though a lot of people like TikTok, it might be hard to pass the law this year because it’s an election year and Biden and Trump have different opinions.
But this law shows that there are still tensions between the U.S. and China, especially when it comes to technology and keeping the country safe.
