The bill will next go to the Senate for a vote, which is scheduled to take place next week.
The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Saturday that would force Bytedance, the Chinese owner of the popular video service Tiktok, to sell the app or face being shut out of the US market.
The United States has expressed concern about Tiktok’s popularity among young people. Tiktok has 170 million users in the US alone. China may be using Tiktok for espionage, according to US intelligence officials. China has denied the allegations.
The bill will next go to the Senate for a vote, which is scheduled to take place next week. President of the United States Joe Biden has indicated he will sign the bill if it advances to his desk.
According to the bill, Bytedance would have to sell the app within a year or it would be excluded from Apple and Google’s app stores in the United States.
Steven Mnuchinwho served as US Treasury Secretary under former President Donald Trump during, has said he is interested in buying Tiktok and assembled a group of investors.
“Restriction of freedom of speech”
Tiktok criticized the result of the vote on Saturday, saying, among other things, that the ban would limit freedom of speech.
Also the billionaire owner of messaging service X Elon Musk on Friday opposed the banning of Tiktok, saying it would be against freedom of expression.
– Tiktok should not be banned in the United States, even if such a ban might benefit the X platform, Musk wrote on his own messaging service.
– That would be against freedom of speech and expression, he continued.
The law banning Tiktok could lead to legal battles. The bill passed by the House of Representatives would give the country’s president the authority to also define other apps as threats to national security if they are managed by a country deemed hostile.
Sources: STT, AFP