We all know TikTok. It’s a social media platform used by roughly 170 million Americans. So why, oh why, did the House of Representatives vote 352 to 65 to pass a bill that could lead to a potential nationwide ban on TikTok?
In a word: Cybersecurity.
To break it down, TikTok is owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance, which is based in Bejing, the capital of China.
The issue here is that China law requires any business, including ByteDance, to cooperate with their intelligence demands, which could hypothetically put US user data at risk. This is the core of everything related to this potential ban.
To make matters worse, TikTok acknowledged to Congress in 2022 that several ByteDance employees (based in China) were fired for accessing the user data of certain US journalists.
The FTC is investigating the alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection rule, which requires companies to obtain consent from parents before collecting data from children under 13.
Despite ByteDance trying to make a big move to store its US user data in the United States, outside of the hands of the Chinese government… it’s not good enough.
The bill currently in Congress would give ByteDance approximately five months to sell TikTok or risk being banned in the United States. The “forced sale” bill is now before the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he will sign it if it reaches his desk.
