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A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has reportedly given a six months deadline to China’s Tiktok. According to a report by news agency Reuters, the lawmakers have introduced a legislation that gives China’s ByteDance about six months to divest popular short video app TikTok or face a US ban. The legislation is said to have raised national security concerns about the app’s Chinese ownership.The app is used by more than 170 million Americans.
Incidentally, national security concerns are the same reason that the Indian government banned Tiktok along with 50 other Chinese apps in June 2020. According to the report, the bill is the first significant legislative move in nearly a year toward banning or forcing ByteDance to divest the popular app, after senate legislation to ban it stalled in Congress last year in the face of heavy lobbying by TikTok.
Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the House of Representatives’ select China committee and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat, are said to be among more than a dozen lawmakers introducing the measure. A White House National Security Council spokesperson called the bill “an important and welcome step” adding that the Biden administration would work with Congress “to further strengthen this legislation and put it on the strongest possible legal footing.”
The bill, which would require companion legislation in the Senate, will be considered at an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday (March 7) for a vote.
Message to Tiktok
“This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” Gallagher said. “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States.”
6 months deadline to TikTok
The bill gives ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok. Post this, it proposes to make it unlawful for app stores run by Apple, Google and others to offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to apps controlled by ByteDance.
Tiktok on the proposed legislation
A company spokesperson told the news agency that this bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. TikTok says that it has not, and would not, share US user data with the Chinese government.
Incidentally, national security concerns are the same reason that the Indian government banned Tiktok along with 50 other Chinese apps in June 2020. According to the report, the bill is the first significant legislative move in nearly a year toward banning or forcing ByteDance to divest the popular app, after senate legislation to ban it stalled in Congress last year in the face of heavy lobbying by TikTok.
Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the House of Representatives’ select China committee and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat, are said to be among more than a dozen lawmakers introducing the measure. A White House National Security Council spokesperson called the bill “an important and welcome step” adding that the Biden administration would work with Congress “to further strengthen this legislation and put it on the strongest possible legal footing.”
The bill, which would require companion legislation in the Senate, will be considered at an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday (March 7) for a vote.
Message to Tiktok
“This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” Gallagher said. “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States.”
6 months deadline to TikTok
The bill gives ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok. Post this, it proposes to make it unlawful for app stores run by Apple, Google and others to offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to apps controlled by ByteDance.
Tiktok on the proposed legislation
A company spokesperson told the news agency that this bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. TikTok says that it has not, and would not, share US user data with the Chinese government.
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