In the next week, the House of Representatives of the United States of America will hold a vote on a bill that has the potential to result in the prohibition of TikTok within the United States. According to statements made by Vice President Joe Biden to the press on Friday, he expressed his support for the plan by saying, “If they pass it, I’ll sign it.”
Is there a ban on TikTok in the United States?
In the event that the law is able to get through the House of Representatives, which is becoming an increasingly likely occurrence, it will next proceed to the Senate. This piece of legislation would be delivered to President Biden’s desk in the event that it were to pass through the Senate with flying colors.
In addition to the statement that President Biden made today, Punchbowl News has also reported on the engagement that the Biden administration has had with senators over this issue.
TikTok’s representative issued the following statement in response to the developments this week:
“The upshot of this legislation is already set in stone: a complete prohibition of the use of TikTok in the United States. 170 million people in the United States are being targeted by the government in an effort to violate their constitutional right to freedom of expression. Millions of companies will suffer adverse effects as a result of this; artists will be denied an audience; and the livelihoods of many creators throughout the country will be destroyed.
Although ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which has ties to China, claims that the result would be a “total ban of TikTok in the United States,” this is not necessarily the case. ByteDance would be required to sell TikTok within 165 days of the measure being enacted, according to the language of the bill in question.
In the event that ByteDance did not fulfill this requirement, it would be against the law for Apple to put TikTok on the App Store. There would be restrictions placed on the ability of other app store providers, such as Google, to sell the application. Should Apple and Google refuse to comply, they may be subject to a punishment of up to $5,000 for every user of TikTok.
In case you are keeping count at home, the United States of America is now in the midst of an election year. Donald Trump, a former president who is currently the leading candidate for the candidacy of the Republican Party this year, has expressed his opposition to this piece of law.
Trump made the following statement in a post that he made on social media: “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business.” It is not in my best interest for Facebook, which cheated in the most recent election, to perform better. To put it simply, they are the people’s worst enemy!
In 2020, while Trump was running for president, he pledged to prohibit the use of TikTok in the United States and backed a law that was quite similar to it. In the end, such attempts were unsuccessful.
Regarding the election, the Biden campaign joined TikTok the month before the election occurred.
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