TikTok Ban In The US Reportedly 'Inevitable'

The House of Representatives passed legislation to ban TikTok in the US on Saturday (20 April), and the legislation now moves to the Senate.

The US is moving to ban TikTok due to reported national security concerns. Democrats and Republicans are worried about the Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd's stake in the video-sharing app. The divest-or-ban legislation passed the House with a vote of 360-58.

According to The Guardian, the Senate is due to decide on the bill next week, and President Joe Biden has vowed to sign the legislation. TikTok has up to nine months (extendible to a year by Biden) to divest or face a ban in the US, marking the first time the US government has signed off on shutting down a social media platform.

“The Ban was inevitable. It was just how we would get there that was up for debate,” a Senate insider said anonymously via news.com.au. “TikTok did a horrible job fighting for its corporate life.”

On the reason for seeking to ban TikTok, Texas Republican representative Michael McCaul has called the app “a spy balloon in Americans’ phones,” Bloomberg reports. McCaul added, “This bill protects Americans and especially America’s children from the malign influence of Chinese propaganda on the app TikTok.”

A spokesperson for TikTok took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and alleged that the House of Representatives “is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually.”

Meredith Whittaker, President of the Signal Foundation, called the passing of the legislation “fucked” and added, “Please take a moment to consider what's happening here. Abuse of surveillance powers is about to be enshrined in US law at the same time that a bill to force TikTok to sell to US buyer or be banned is moving forward, justified in part via ‘data privacy’.”

Earlier this year, opposition leader Peter Dutton called on the Albanese government to follow the United States' example and implement a ban on TikTok.

In an interview with WSFM’s Jonesy and Amanda, Anthony Albanese stated that the federal government has “no plans” to ban TikTok in Australia.

“We’ll take advice, but we have no plans to do that,” he said. “You’ve always got to have national security concerns front and centre, but you also need to acknowledge that for a whole lot of people, this provides a way of them communicating. And so, we haven’t got advice at this stage to do that.”

It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform…

— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) April 18, 2024

This is fucked. Please take a moment to consider what's happening here.

Abuse of surveillance powers is about to be enshrined in US law at the same time that a bill to force TikTok to sell to US buyer or be banned is moving forward, justified in part via "data privacy". https://t.co/nCS8kKruIW

— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) April 20, 2024