Tik Tok Law Coming – Biden in a Dilemma

A US law forcing the transfer of ownership of the short video app Tiktok has also passed the Senate, the second chamber of Congress. The bill is now on the desk of President Joe Biden, who has already announced he will sign it. China-based Python Group will have a maximum of a year to split from TikTok. Otherwise, this app should be banned from US app stores. It's unclear whether the plan will hold up in U.S. courts. An earlier threat to ban it failed there.

The legislation passed the Senate Wednesday night by a majority of 79 to 18. Bydatense is seen by all parties in the United States as a Chinese company that must bow to the will of the Chinese Communist Party. So there are warnings that Chinese authorities could gain large-scale access to data from US users — and use the platform for political influence. TikTok has been denying this for years.

The law passed a second time in the House of Representatives a few days ago, this time as part of a package that, among other things, makes possible new aid to Ukraine. That's why it got through the Senate so quickly on the second try.

The law confuses Biden's Democrats: on the one hand, the president wants to take a tough stance toward China, and on the other hand, the app is popular among young users, whose votes he needs for re-election in November. Biden's campaign team only opened a TikTok account this year.

TikTok insists it does not see itself as a subsidiary of a Chinese company. BytaDense is 60 percent owned by Western investors. The company is headquartered in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. However, U.S. politicians counter that the Chinese founders, with a 20 percent stake, maintain control because of greater voting rights, and because Pythons is headquartered in Beijing, where they cannot escape the influence of the authorities.

According to its own information, TikTok has 170 million users in the United States. During his tenure as US president, Donald Trump tried to force the sale of TikTok's US business to US investors with sanctions threats.

But the plan failed as US courts suspected the plans to ban TikTok violated the freedom of speech enshrined in the US Constitution. Montana's current law banning TikTok from app stores is also on hold. Trump has now backed away from calls for a ban.