The United States is once again pressuring to ban TikTok. Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved, by a wide margin, a law giving ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the popular video app, 180 days to sell the business in the country. If it does not comply, the platform would be blocked.
Since 2018, TikTok has grown into one of the world’s most popular digital platforms. It is estimated to have more than 1.5 billion users, with around 170 million in the United States. Washington views the app as a threat not only because it is more popular among young people than American competitors like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, but also because its owner is based in China. In 2020, former President Donald Trump issued an executive order citing concerns about Beijing’s potential espionage to justify banning the app.
The courts rolled back the Trump-era ban, but the fear-driven argument remains a political staple that now anchors policy for Joe Biden as well. The current president has chosen a legislative path, leveraging a national security rationale that has earned broad bipartisan backing, a degree of cross-party agreement rarely seen in the United States.
The proposed law, which still requires Senate approval, aims to place TikTok under American control. However, other foreign social networks such as Telegram or the Chinese-owned WeChat could face the same coercive regime that forces a sale within six months.
Civil challenges
The proposal has drawn strong criticism from digital rights groups, who say it is a political move that jeopardizes online privacy rather than protecting it. “This bill will not stop data sharing, which will continue to be collected by numerous platforms, and it will reduce our online rights,” warned a spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a statement.
“The only way to prevent governments from turning data collected by private companies into weapons is to stop those companies from collecting and storing so much information in the first place. That goal cannot be achieved through censorship,” added Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group. Both groups advocate for a federal privacy law that would limit data collection by companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta, among others.
The criticism also notes that if passed, the law could curb free expression with consequences that extend beyond the United States. “It would be a betrayal of the First Amendment and a gift to authoritarian regimes worldwide, which will soon cite this misguided bill to justify new limits on their citizens’ access to ideas, information, and media from abroad,” commented Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
Is a sale viable?
There are already American entrepreneurs eyeing opportunities. For example, Steven Mnuchin, former Treasury secretary under Trump, recently said he is trying to assemble a group to buy TikTok. During his time in government, Mnuchin pressed the White House to force ByteDance to sell its flagship app, the value of which remains undisclosed.
Even if the law clears Congress, the sale could stall in the courts. It is expected that Beijing would resist a sale by blocking the operation, since transferring its profitable asset to a main Western rival would be damaging to China’s interests. Beijing has already rejected the logic of the American ultimatum, calling it a move by a rogue actor.