It finally happened.
After months and months of hemming and hawing about the subject, it looks like lawmakers in the United States finally issued TikTok’s parent company ByteDance an ultimatum to sell the company or shut it down in the United States.
Citing national security concerns, among other things, the US Congress approved the bill and President Biden signed it meaning it’s all a formality from here. For its part, ByteDance is reluctant to sell and seems to have waited for someone to blink in this whole drama. Well, that hasn’t happened yet and the clock starts now for the company to shut down or sell itself within one year.
And the company isn’t going to go down without a fight although options appear somewhat limited at his point.
In a statement to Wired: “This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court. We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail. The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep US data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday. “This ban would devastate 7 million businesses and silence 170 million Americans. As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired.”
As one of the largest social media platforms in the USA, and one of Instagram’s major competitors, shutting it down would be a pretty big deal for millions of people. It would also change the conversation around social media platforms, particularly data security, and the whole business proposition. If it is so dangerous that it needs to be banned, what makes domestic services a safer option?
Any thoughts you might have on TikTok being forced to sell its business in the United States are welcome in the comments.
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