TikTok has about 170 million subscribers in the US
AFP reported today, April 21, that the bill passed the House of Representatives with 360 votes in favor and 58 against. According to the bill, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance (China), must sell the popular social networking app within 1 year, or TikTok will be excluded from Apple and Google's app stores in the US.
The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week, and President Joe Biden has said he will sign it into law. The White House chief said he raised concerns about TikTok in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month.
Washington believes that the TikTok platform allows Beijing to spy on users in the US. European countries have similar concerns.
TikTok quickly responded immediately after the US House of Representatives announced the voting results, saying that the bill "trampled on the freedom of speech of 170 million Americans (the number of TikTok subscribers in this country), affected 7 million businesses and shut down a platform that contributes 24 billion USD per year to the US economy ".
Steven Mnuchin, former US Treasury Secretary under the Trump administration, has expressed his intention to acquire TikTok and has assembled a group of investors for this plan.
If the bill is signed into law, the president would have the power to label other apps as a threat to national security if they come from a country the US considers hostile.
However, billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), spoke out against banning TikTok in the US because it goes against freedom of speech.
Source link
Comment (0)