The Senate approves the bill brought to ban TikTok in the United States

The US Senate has approved a controversial bill to ban TikTok in America.

Under this, TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, will have to sell its shares in the US within the next six months. Otherwise this app will be blocked in USA.

The bill will now go to President Joe Biden for his signature and become law after his signature.

This would require ByteDance to seek approval from Chinese authorities to sell TikTok on a mandatory basis, which Beijing has already strongly opposed.

The bill was previously passed by the US Congress with a package of four bills, including those related to military assistance to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and US partners in the Indo-Pacific region.

The bill received overwhelming support in the Senate. There 79 senators voted for it and 18 voted against it.

This video sharing app has billions of users worldwide. But now there are increasing questions about the Chinese government’s connection with it and the security of its users’ data.

Now both Congress and Senate of the United States have passed bills on ticks. President Biden has already promised to sign it into law.

The BBC’s tech reporter Liv McMahon writes that the bill, which has been passed into law by lawmakers from both major US parties, would see the US ban the app unless it is sold to a non-Chinese company.

They fear that the Chinese government could force TikTok to hand over the data of its 17 million US users.

TikTok, however, has said it will not hand over foreign users’ data to the Chinese government.

On April 21, Congress passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill that included the mandatory sale of TikTok.

However, such an initiative by the American authorities regarding TikTok is not new this time.

Former President Donald Trump also wanted to shut down the app when he was in the White House in 2020.

Mr. Trump is the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election. However, he criticized the new law, saying that if TikTok is restricted, it will benefit Facebook.

The ban on TikTok will not take effect immediately after President Joe Biden signs it.

Americans can’t use the app—it could take years to confirm.

Because ByteDance may even approach the Supreme Court to block the forced sale of the app.

The passed bill also gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok to an American buyer.

If not, ByteDance will have another three months as a grace period for the ban to take effect.

This means that the sale deadline will expire sometime in 2025. By then, the winner of the 2024 election in the United States will assume the presidency.

If Donald Trump becomes president, he could block the ban.

The easiest way for the US is to remove the app from the various Apple and Android app stores.

Smart phone and tablet users download their favorite apps from the app store. As a result, if removed from the App Store, TikTok will no longer receive new users.

And those who are using it now will not be able to update the app in the future even if it is not in the app store.

The US-approved bill would allow the app to be updated and maintained inside and outside the country, giving the president the power to restrict the app’s use in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

TikTok criticized the proposed law, saying it was an affront to freedom of expression in the United States.

Its chief executive, So Ji-Chiu, warned that the bill would “further strengthen other social media” and threaten the jobs of many Americans.

ByteDance needs to get approval from Chinese authorities to sell TikTok. Beijing has previously opposed such initiatives.

Some users in the US have criticized the proposed law.

Tiffany Yu, a young rights activist from Los Angeles, works with the disabled. Speaking to the BBC during a protest in front of the White House, he told the BBC that the platform was important to his work.

TikTok asked its 1.7 million users to contact their representatives not to support the bill.

Some politicians said the campaign exacerbated their concerns and made them more determined to pass the law.

If the bill eventually becomes law, it could spur similar action elsewhere.

India has already banned Tiktok. The country was a big market for the app before the ban came into force in June 2020.

Besides, TikTok is also closed in Iran, Nepal, Afghanistan and Somalia.

In 2023, the UK government and parliament banned the use of TikTok on their staff’s devices. So did the European Commission.

The BBC has also advised staff to delete the app from their corporate phones due to security fears.