By MAGGIE BRADY
Since its creation in 2016, TikTok has been one of the most popular social media platforms for teenagers. Its short-form, personal content attracted the attention of many users across the country, and it’s since become a staple in the lives of many.
That may all change, however, with the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passing a bill in early March that could lead to the ban of TikTok in the U.S. The bill, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, was passed by a vote of 352 to 65. The bill would lead to Americans losing “access to TikTok within six months,” said CBS News. Once the bill is passed by President Biden, ByteDance will have nine months to sell the app to an American company.
Lawmakers are trying to regulate the app because of its connection to China. They fear the Chinese government could use TikTok to spy on Americans or influence them by promoting certain content.
“A law China implemented in 2017 requires companies to give the government any personal data relevant to the country’s national security,” according to AP News. While there’s no evidence that TikTok has collected such data, some lawmakers are still greatly concerned for the United States’ national security.
This isn’t the first attempt to remove TikTok from American phones. In August 2020, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order demanding that the app either be sold to an American owner or be shut down. In 2021, Biden rescinded the order.
However, just last year, The White House gave US federal agencies 30 days to delete TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices. The same ban has been put in place for government-issued devices in Canada, the European Union, Denmark, and several other countries.
TikTok fought back with the 2022 “Project Texas” initiative, which “is an unprecedented initiative dedicated to making every American on TikTok feel safe, with confidence that their data is secure and the platform is free from outside influence,” according to TikTok’s website.
The framework of the initiative contains five main pillars: independent governance, data protection and access control, software assurance, content assurance, and monitoring and compliance. “We want all of our community to have the utmost confidence in the security of TikTok, so they can continue to share, create, learn, and find joy,” said the company.
This wasn’t enough to ease the concerns of American lawmakers, some of whom have pushed forward to get the platform off of all American devices. President Biden also put his full support behind the ban, saying that he would sign it if it gets passed by Congress. While the future of the app might be uncertain, it might not actually be banned any time soon.
The bill was originally passed by The House in March as a standalone bill, but the Senate seemed to be in no rush to pass it. Eventually, the bill was passed in a 79-18 vote by the Senate on April 23rd and was included as part of a larger $95 billion package that provides foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel. The House decided to include the bill in the passage to “expedite its passage in Congress” according to AP news.
President Biden quickly signed the bill the next day, giving ByteDance 270 days to sell. However, Biden could extend the ban by another 90 days if he believes the company has made progress toward a sale. TikTok is threatening legal action against the sale claiming that the bill violates its users’ First Amendment rights. A legal battle would push the ban back even further because “while the case is under judicial review, the “clock” on any ban is effectively paused” according to NBC News. Users of the app will be relieved to hear that it could potentially take years for a TikTok ban to actually go into effect.
May 2024
The Prowler 