People worldwide know and love TikTok, but what if I told you it is getting banned? TikTok is a social media app that produces user-submitted videos. A Beijing-based ByteDance owns TikTok, and due to its success not long after its launch in 2016. TikTok became the world’s most popular social media app. In April 2020, TikTok surpassed two billion downloads worldwide. It has had viral trends of every genre take off and increase the app’s popularity. However, due to privacy violation concerns over data collection from the Chinese government, The United States of America is attempting to ban TikTok or force ByteDance to sell the platform to an American Company.
The House of Representatives approved a bipartisan bill requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company because the Chinese government stole user information and privacy. The vote to ban TikTok on all U.S. devices ended in a blowout, the final vote count being 352-65. In the Senate, the fate of the legislation needs to be clarified. The top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Marco Rubio and Mark Warner, released a statement praising the House bill and persuading the Senate to take action. However, the timing of the Senate passing the bill could be more precise. The bill would ban TikTok in the United States if an American Company doesn’t buy it.
Mike Gallagher, who is on the House Select Committee for China and is a lead GOP of the bill, explains, “What we’re after is, it’s not a ban, it’s a forced separation, the TikTok user experience can continue, and improve so long as ByteDance doesn’t own the company.”
Even if the Senate passes the bill, there is still a long way to go before TikTok is banned. It is essential to understand that this situation is constantly changing and evolving. If an American company were to buy TikTok, it would not have the private algorithm that gets millions of users to spend hours on the app daily. However, TikTok is still available worldwide. If the ban is passed, it will prevent the app store from distributing TikTok thoroughly. TikTok’s future remains unknown, and anything will take many more months to become a certainty.
