The American Congress adopted a law on Tuesday April 24 asking the giant TikTok to cut its ties with its parent company, ByteDance, and more broadly with China, if it does not want to risk being banned in the United States. The President, Joe Biden, immediately announced that he was going to promulgate the text, adopted a few days earlier in the House of Representatives, the other component of the American Congress.
The ultimatum from American legislators to the very popular social network is part of a text providing for a gigantic envelope which includes aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Candidate for his re-election in November, the Democratic head of state had reiterated his ” worry “ about TikTok during an exchange with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in early April.
Ban TikTok “would violate freedom of expression” of 170 million Americans, the popular social network protested immediately after the vote in the House of Representatives on Saturday. If it comes into force, the text will force ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to sell the application within twelve months, failing which it would be excluded from Apple and Google stores in the territory American.
A similar text had already been adopted in mid-March by representatives, providing only a six-month period to find a buyer other than Chinese, but the bill then remained in parliamentary limbo. Donald Trump’s former US Treasury Secretary, former banker Steven Mnuchin, even said he was interested in buying TikTok in the United States by bringing together a group of investors.
TikTok has been in the crosshairs of American authorities for years, with many officials believing that the short and entertaining video platform allows Beijing to spy on its users in the United States. However, its potential ban risks being challenged in court.