TikTok might get banned. The United States House of Representatives recently passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the US unless the company that owns TikTok, ByteDance, sells TikTok to an American company.
TikTok is a massive and popular app where people can upload short 20 second to 3 minute videos that has over 170 million monthly American users. TikTok also has a shop feature where thousands of small businesses run their shops.
According to TechTarget the reason for this ban is that there are concerns that TikTok’s Chinese-based owner, ByteDance, might potentially be selling Americans users personal data to the Chinese government.
The House gave ByteDance a six month deadline to sell its app Tik Tok or else they would lose access to the app store. This ban is controversial because if Tik Tok gets banned many small businesses would have to shut down since they use the Tik Tok Shop to sell and operate their small businesses.
The Senate has yet to pass the bill since they still are unsure of their decision on whether to ban the app nationwide or not. Senate leadership hasn’t brought a vote on the bill yet.
According to AP News, Joe Biden says if the bill reaches him he would pass the bill without hesitation. Donald Trump’s opinion on the TikTok ban has changed. First he said that he was in favor of the TikTok ban bill, but currently he’s changed direction and is now against it.
TikTok has started a campaign where if you search up “SaveTikTok” on TikTok search it would pull up a banner which says “Stop the TikTok ban” and would give you the option to enter your zip code and call your local senator.
What is your opinion on the TikTok ban? Is it a good thing to restrict an app that could potentially give users’ data to the Chinese government. Or is it bad to ban an app that thousands of communities use and and small businesses build their shops on.
UPDATE:
According to NPR on April 24th the bill banning TikTok was signed by President Biden after being passed by the Senate. Shortly after the bill was signed a 2 minute and 12 second video was posted on to the official TikTok account, where TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew shared his response towards the TikTok ban bill.
