An ongoing effort to force TikTok owner ByteDance to either sell the app or face a ban in the United States might be approaching the finish line.
On Saturday, the House of Representatives passed a TikTok bill as part of a larger foreign aid package that will now be sent to the Senate. This may sound familiar, as the House passed a similar bill just last month, but that one seemed unlikely to move forward in the Senate. The new version may have more Senate support, because it extends the window for ByteDance to sell to nine months (or a full year, if the president decides to grant an extension).
President Joe Biden has already said he supports and will sign the bill. After that, TikTok will presumably challenge it in court — and if the company loses, we’ll see if it will actually sell or just walk away from the U.S. market.
The issue cuts across traditional political lines: Both Democrats and Republicans have suggested that ByteDance has ties to the Chinese Communist Party that make TikTok a national security threat. (Opponents have been outnumbered but seem to be similarly bipartisan.) TikTok has denied such ties and also asked its users to voice their support.
Whatever happens next, it seemed like a good week for The New York Times to publish a long list of the ways TikTok has already changed American culture, from generating countless trends to becoming Hollywood’s favorite new marketing channel.
And the Chinese government showed that app banning goes both ways, forcing Apple to pull Threads and WhatsApp from China’s App Store.
