This article was updated on March 13, 2024 at 4:46 p.m.
STORY BY AIDEN EISEL, STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY GABI GARCIA, CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
A bill proposing the banning of TikTok in the United States due to safety reasons will be signed by President Joe Biden if passed through Congress.
The app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has received criticism due to the concern that the Chinese government can collect American users’ information through the app. User location, search history, and user data are among the personal information the app can reportedly track. The name of the bill aiming to avoid this data collection is called the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.”
According to the website SearchLogistics.com, TikTok is a streaming app with over one billion users monthly, enough to place the app as the 4th most popular social media platform in terms of monthly users. It doubles the number of users Snapchat has at 500 million users.
Many Republicans in the House of Representatives are trending towards moving the bill that’d force either one of two options: make the Chinese owners of TikTok sell the platform entirely or make the platform unavailable in the United States.
If the bill does get passed, it will likely be designated as a national security threat by President Biden. This would force ByteDance to sell the company within 180 days, or the app would be banned in the United States. If the app is considered a national security threat, it will be removed from the App Store by Sept. 30 unless ByteDance sells the app entirely.
Many other politicians have accused the Chinese government of utilizing the app to spy on its users and spread the “Chinese Communist Party” agenda to American users.
The bill is receiving backlash from users and companies due to the possible damage it will cause to millions of businesses and content creators who make their living off of the app. Many businesses made advertisements through TikTok, and without it, it would be much harder for them to advertise their company.
Former President Donald Trump has vowed to not ban TikTok despite advocating for the ban while still in office in 2020, but now sees the potential ban as a way to help the app Facebook, in which he considers the app an “enemy of the people.” While President Biden is in favor of the app’s removal, he noted that he wanted to use TikTok as a platform for his 2024 campaign in an attempt to reach out to younger voters, but even he seems to have concerns about the possibility of China’s ownership of the app.
On March 13, the bill passed through Congress in a 352-65 vote, which now means that ByteDance has five months to either sell TikTok, or it will get banned from all app stores in the United States.
It will now go to the Senate, TikTok has responded to the decision of the House and is encouraging the Senate to “consider the facts.” The foreign ministry for China responded to the bill calling it an “act of bullying.” Again, President Biden says he will sign the bill if it passes through the Senate.