- The US parliament passed a bill paving the way for banning TikTok, which has 170 million users in the US.
- If the bill becomes law, TikTok will be banned in the USA unless it is sold to someone “the USA deems appropriate”.
- The main reason why the USA is not wanted in TikTok is that TikTok is based in China and may sell its data to China.
TikTok, which has entered our lives in recent years and gained a very important place, is a subsidiary of the China-based ByteDance company. TikTok, which has millions of users all over the world, has approximately 170 million users in the USA.
China, where TikTok is based, has not had very friendly relations with the USA for many years. For this reason, the fact that a Chinese company has the data of 170 million users from the USA is seen as a very dangerous situation for the USA.
The way for TikTok ban has been cleared
In response to a Chinese company having such a large audience in the USA, an important bill was passed in the US House of Representatives to ban TikTok in America.
The new bill was accepted by an overwhelming majority in the parliamentary vote. However, for the bill to become law, it must pass the Senate and be signed by the president.
“TikTok should be sold to someone else!“
According to the new bill, TikTok must be sold to someone “the United States deems appropriate”. If this bill becomes law and TikTok is not sold to someone deemed suitable, it will be banned in the country.
Even if ByteDance, which owns TikTok, wants to sell the app, it may not be able to do so easily. The company had previously valued the application at approximately $268 billion. The price tag may scare some investors.
Why doesn’t the US government want TikTok?
We can say that the USA actually does not want TikTok because it is afraid of its potential danger. If China-based TikTok shares the data of 170 million US users with China, one of the US’s biggest rivals, the US may face serious problems.
TikTok general manager Shou Zi Chew said the company is committed to keeping its data safe and keeping the platform “free from external manipulations.” However, these statements do not seem to convince the USA.
Compiled by: Ömer Kağan Selen