TikTok banned in the US
The US House of Representatives has just passed a bill related to TikTok, which could lead to the first time the US shuts down an entire TikTok social networking platform in the country and thereby opens a new precedent.
AFP today, April 21, reported that the bill passed the House of Representatives with 360 votes in favor and 58 votes against. According to the bill, TikTok ‘s parent company ByteDance (China) must sell the popular social networking application within 1 year, or TikTok will be excluded from Apple and Google’s app stores in the US.
The US Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week and President Joe Biden said he will sign it into law. The White House owner said that he emphasized concerns about TikTok in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month.
Washington believes that Beijing and the TikTok platform can track users in the US. European countries also have similar concerns.
TikTok quickly reacted immediately after the US House of Representatives announced the voting results, saying that the above bill “trampled the freedom of speech of 170 million Americans (the number of people registered for TikTok in this country), causing negative impacts.” benefits 7 million businesses and closes a platform that contributes $24 billion a year to the US economy.”
Mr. Steven Mnuchin, former US Treasury Secretary under President Donald Trump’s administration, expressed his intention to buy TikTok and has gathered a group of investors for this plan.
If the above bill is signed into law, the president will have the right to label other applications as a threat to the country’s national security, if the application comes from a country considered hostile by the US.
However, billionaire Elon Musk , owner of X (former name Twitter), spoke out against banning TikTok in the US for reasons that go against freedom of speech.