Part of a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes military support for US allies, the bill is the first to trigger the rare step of banning a company from operating in the US. US market. The bill passed the Senate with a vote of 79 in favor, 18 against, three days after the House passed it with strong bipartisan support. With the green light in both houses of Congress, this bill will be sent to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature.
Under the Bill, ByteDance would have to sell the app within a year or be removed from Apple and Google’s app stores in the United States.
Steven Mnuchin, who served as US Treasury Secretary under his predecessor Donald Trump, said he is interested in acquiring TikTok and has assembled a group of investors.
TikTok has for many years been in the sights of US authorities, who believe that the platform, with its parent company ByteDance, has close ties to the Beijing Government and is not safe for information security. of US users.
Not just TikTok, the bill recently passed by Congress gives the US president the power to designate other applications as a threat to national security if they are controlled by a country considered hostile.
TikTok criticized the decision, saying that “US lawmakers are ignoring the interests of 170 million Americans, devastating 7 million businesses and shutting down a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy annually “.
Elon Musk, the American billionaire currently owner of platform X, formerly Twitter, also spoke out against banning TikTok, saying “this decision is incompatible with freedom of speech and expression American achievement”.
