So is TikTok really going to be banned after President Biden signed the bill into law? There’s a long fight ahead.
TikTok faces a fight in the next year. Credit: Photo illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images
President Joe Biden signed a bill into law on Wednesday that could, effectively, ban TikTok in the U.S. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be without the app right now or, really, anytime soon.
Like any bill, things are complicated. The bill Biden signed is primarily a foreign aid package that’ll send $60 billion to Ukraine to fight Russia’s invasion and some $26 billion to both Israel and relief in Gaza. However, tied to that bill was legislation that gave ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, up to one year to divest itself from the app in the U.S.
Basically, it’s a demand to sell or be banned.
So, what happens now? Well, in short, a legal fight. TikTok indicated Wednesday, pretty much right away, that it intended to battle the legislation in court.
“Make no mistake, this is a ban,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in a video posted to the company’s platform on Tuesday.
Chew promised a fight. And, to be clear, there won’t be any real changes for TikTok users in the immediate term.
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” Chew said in the TikTok. “We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again.”
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The lawmakers against TikTok have argued that, since the app is owned by a Chinese company, it could be forced to hand over American users’ data to the Chinese government. That would be worrisome, considering there are 170 million American users on the app. Other lawmakers in other countries have successfully made similar arguments to ban or restrict the app.
TikTok has flatly and routinely denied that it shares U.S. users’ data with the Chinese government.
TikTok has fended off bans in the courts before, notably in Montana last year.
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” TikTok said in a statement Wednesday after Biden signed the bill. “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 U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation.”
So what comes next?
Well, as The Verge noted, if TikTok gets a court to agree with the company or delay enforcement of the legislation, then the timeline for a ban would get extended. In other words, as taking something to court is wont to do, TikTok could drag things out.
And, of course, even if the legislation is upheld, ByteDance has, at minimum, nine months to decide if it will sell the app in the U.S. The timeline can be extended out to a year if the president feels there is progress on a deal.
The next year for TikTok in the U.S. will be rife with lawyers and laws and a PR push. Perhaps the biggest tool at the company’s disposal is its massive user base. Remember when it sent a pop-up asking users to call lawmakers, then Congress was inundated with calls? You can expect more messaging from the company as it fights to stay in the U.S.
But as far as a regular user goes, the next year of TikTok might look like, well, the last year on TikTok. For now, things will remain as they were. You’ll see videos of people dancing, cute dogs, good food, music, jokes, the whole nine.
But the fight for the long-term survival of the app will hang over it all.
Tim Marcin is a culture reporter at Mashable, where he writes about food, fitness, weird stuff on the internet, and, well, just about anything else. You can find him posting endlessly about Buffalo wings on Twitter at @timmarcin.
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