*ban, mods pls fix title
siap
it took a backseat to the other provisions in the ukraine/israel/taiwan aid package and hasn't gotten much coverage, but last night congress officially passed a measure forcing parent company bytedance (owned by the CCP) to divest tiktok in the us or face a potential ban. biden is expected to sign it, and bytedance is expected to fight it in court.
notably, bytedance has a year to find a buyer before a potential ban would go into effect. speculated likely buyers at this time include microsoft and oracle, although it's unclear if bytedance will be willing to sell even under threat of a ban if they don't.
story link
siap
it took a backseat to the other provisions in the ukraine/israel/taiwan aid package and hasn't gotten much coverage, but last night congress officially passed a measure forcing parent company bytedance (owned by the CCP) to divest tiktok in the us or face a potential ban. biden is expected to sign it, and bytedance is expected to fight it in court.
notably, bytedance has a year to find a buyer before a potential ban would go into effect. speculated likely buyers at this time include microsoft and oracle, although it's unclear if bytedance will be willing to sell even under threat of a ban if they don't.
story link
imo it's good congress finally stopped dragging their feet on this one and exercised some common sense. trump was right to attempt the ban in 2020, no reason for china to have a direct backchannel to spy on tens of millions of americans.Quote:
The U.S. Senate voted by a wide margin late Tuesday in favor of legislation that would ban TikTok in the United States if its owner, the Chinese tech firm ByteDance, fails to divest the popular short video app over the next nine months to a year.
...
"For years we've allowed the Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted," said Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee. "A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America."
...
TikTok is set to challenge the bill on First Amendment grounds and TikTok users are also expected to again take legal action. A U.S. judge in Montana in November blocked a state ban on TikTok, citing free speech grounds.
...
The Senate voted 79 to 18 in favor of the bill, which was attached to a measure to provide $95 billion in mostly military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The TikTok divestment directive won fast-track approval after being introduced just weeks ago.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump was blocked by the courts in his bid to block TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, a unit of Tencent in the United States.
However, the new legislation is likely to give the Biden administration a stronger legal footing to ban TikTok if ByteDance fails to divest the app, experts say.
