TikTok parent company ByteDance has no plans to sell app after Biden signed bill that includes potential ban. Here's the latest.
The company made the announcement on Thursday.
ByteDance on Thursday denied that it plans to sell TikTok after a report claimed the company was “internally exploring scenarios” to sell a majority stake, preferably to a firm outside the tech industry.
Reuters reported the news after President Biden on Wednesday announced he had signed into law the National Security Supplemental bill, which includes a potential TikTok ban.
Four sources also told Reuters that ByteDance would rather shut down the app than sell it if the company exhausts all options to fight the legislation.
The president has been clear about his intention to support such a ban despite joining the video-sharing app in February. He did not mention the TikTok provision during a press briefing on Wednesday.
Late Tuesday in a 79-18 vote, the Senate passed legislation that could ban TikTok if China-based ByteDance doesn’t divest from the platform. The TikTok provision was included in a package of bills that would send aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
TikTok responded Wednesday, saying it will challenge the decision in court.
⏰ Let’s rewind. Here’s a quick timeline of the TikTok ban.
In March, the House passed a standalone version of the ban calling for ByteDance to sell TikTok within 180 days (about six months). But it seemed uncertain whether the Senate agreed TikTok posed a national security threat. This happened a year after lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee brought in TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to testify about the platform’s ties to China.
According to the Washington Post, members of Congress and the Biden administration had been working for months to develop this latest bill.
The newest iteration now gives ByteDance nine months to sell the app or face a national ban. The president can also grant a one-time extension of 90 days if ByteDance proves it’s on a path to divestiture.
📅 When would the ban go into effect?
The earliest a TikTok ban could start is January 2025 — or April 2025 if the one-time extension is granted. However, legal experts anticipate that with TikTok threatening legal action, the ban could be postponed for even longer.
A source told NBC News that the upcoming presidential election was “definitely” “conveniently addressed” by the new deadline. Former President Donald Trump also tried to leverage Biden’s support of the ban in a Truth Social post, advising young people to “remember this on November 5th, ELECTION DAY.” (Trump signed an executive order in August 2020 to ban TikTok if ByteDance didn’t sell it within 45 days. It was later blocked in court.)
🇺🇸 What would the ban look like for Americans?
If ByteDance cannot or refuses to sell TikTok within the allotted time frame, it will be illegal for app stores and web hosting companies, like Akamai Technologies, to distribute or update the app.
TikTok was banned in India nearly four years ago, along with dozens of other Chinese-owned apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. India had about 200 million TikTok users — the U.S. has around 170 million — making it the country with the most users outside of China.
Within months of the ban, those millions of users in India flocked to Google’s YouTube Shorts and Instagram’s Reels, which is a likely future for American users too. But it seems like it would go against the Biden administration’s attempts to block tech giants from becoming even more powerful.
A major difference between India’s ban and the U.S.’s potential ban is that TikTok has said it will go to court against the U.S.’s decision, which it did not do for India’s ban, citing the First Amendment.
⚖️ What are the 1st Amendment concerns with the TikTok ban?
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement Wednesday that the ban is “unconstitutional.”
“The First Amendment means that the government can’t restrict Americans’ access to ideas, information or media from abroad without a very good reason for it — and no such reason exists here,” Jaffer said. “Repackaging the government’s reasons for the ban in the language of ‘national security’ does not change the analysis. There’s no national security exception to the First Amendment.”
