The US House of Representatives approved this Wednesday (13) a law that could ban TikTok in the country.
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The project orders that the app, controlled by the Chinese company ByteDance, has a new owner in the USA. Otherwise, the social network will have to leave the country.
With broad support from Democrats and Republicans, the bill was approved by 352 votes to 65. To be valid, it still needs to pass the Senate and also depends on the sanction of the US president. Last week, President Joe Biden said he would sign the law.
It is worth remembering that despite being focused on TikTok, the proposed legislation affects “applications controlled by foreign adversaries” (understand below).
The idea comes from Donald Trump’s government, which said that ByteDance represented a risk to the country’s security because China could take advantage of the company’s power to obtain data from American users. TikTok’s parent company denies this risk.
According to Reuters, TikTok said it expects “the US Senate to consider the facts and listen to its voters” before making any decision.
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“We hope they see the impact on the economy, on 7 million small businesses, and on the 170 million Americans who use our service,” a TikTok spokesperson said following the results.
Therefore, if the law is also approved in the Senate and sanctioned by Biden, ByteDance must find a buyer within a period of up to six months. This new owner cannot be related to the Chinese company.
If ByteDance refuses to comply with the American decision or if it does not find a buyer, big tech companies Apple and Google, owner of Android, will have to remove TikTok from their app stores, App Store and Play Store, respectively.
Furthermore, according to The New York Times, American courts may punish companies that disobey the new rules against the Chinese app.
