United States – On Monday, the republican candidate of the United States, Donald Trump, said TikTok was a national security threat, but he added that the social media networks as Meta’s Facebook posed the same kind of threat as other social media ones.
Congressional Bill Targets TikTok Divestment
As legislators are debating a bill this week that would let ByteDance, the TikTok owner, have almost 6 months to sell the famous short video application, Trump repeatedly reached out to them to express his concerns, as reported by The Associated Press.
It is proposed that the US Congress votes this week on a bill that will enable the well-known Chinese firm ByteDance to be given six months to rid of TikTok, a popular short video app, which has over 170 million Americans.
“I’m not looking to make Facebook, double the size. And if you if you ban TikTok, Facebook and others, but mostly Facebook will be a big beneficiary,” Trump said Monday. “And I think Facebook has been very dishonest.”
Meta’s Suspension of Trump’s Accounts
Furthermore, Trump used to level accusations against Meta Platforms (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) for having suspended his accounts after deleting two of his posts from January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot. His accounts were re-instated in February 2023.
Last week, President Joe Biden said he would sign the bill after its approval by a committee on Thursday in a unanimous vote.
TikTok disagrees with the claim that it shared US user data with the Chinese government and expresses that the proposed House Bill amounts to a ban. Interestingly, it is doubtful whether China will approve the sale or if TikTok can be divested in six months.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” the company said Friday. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise wrote that “we must ensure the Chinese government cannot weaponize TikTok against American users and our government through data collection and propaganda.”
Doubts Over Chinese Approval
The bill would enable ByteDance to sell-off TikTok within 165 days. If it fails to take TikTok’s side in this case, the app stores operated by Apple, Alphabet’s Google and others would not be legally allowed to offer TikTok or host any related application that is owned by ByteDance.
In 2020 the Trump administration tried to ban TikTok and WeChat which is a Chinese owned app but the court stopped that from happening.
Getting legislation adopted by the House and Senate in an election year may be challenging due to the popularity of the app. The Biden reelection campaign joined TikTok last month, as reported by The Associated Press.
The Trump campaign isn’t on TikTok.
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