Back in March of 2024, the United States Government announced that they would be proceeding with the ban of the popular ByteDance app, TikTok. US Congress and senators claimed that TikTok had a negative impact on children’s mental health and was Chinese Spyware, causing a national security issue. In April, 2024, the Biden Administration approved of the ban.
Plenty of the claims about TikTok did not make much sense to their users, such as the app being connected to the Chinese government to steal and sell U.S. users’ data. People online pointed out the hypocrisy of the ban due to apps like Temu who have been a security user and still remain on American app stores.
Originally, the Bill H.R.231 (which would ban/remove TikTok from U.S. app stores) gave TikTok six months to sell to an American business. However, it was then changed to nine months to sell their app’s assets to a U.S. company in order to have their app remain on American phones; in which ByteDance declined the offer, due to America taking up 10% of their user database.
The Bill sparked tons of controversy online and on the app itself, multiple influencers including former President Donald Trump came to the app’s defense. Trump said on his campaign that he was in full support of the app being allowed on American phones, he also claimed there were other apps more dangerous than TikTok like Facebook.
It has been seven months since the bill was passed in a bipartisan vote, and not much has been talked about since then. This doesn’t mean that TikTok is safe from the ban, the bill is still in effect as of September 2024.
TikTok, on September 16, was in federal court arguing that the ban breaks American users’ first amendment rights. TikTok also argued that the ban is unjust and they are being singled out.
U.S. congress argued saying that if there was a potential war with another country, media apps including TikTok put U.S. safety at risk; however, TikTok claims being owned outside of the U.S. helps play a key role in the app.
As of September 2024, TikTok is still on the road to getting banned in the United States. IsUnless it is overturned by congress, the bill will take effect January 19, 2024. However, it is also likely another extension gets added if the case keeps dragging on. Calling local Representatives to vote out congressmen out who are in favor of the ban will help get the bill overturned.
