On Tuesday, The United States Senate passed the controversial “TikTok ban” bill, which threatens the social media platform’s parent company BtyeDance to sell its stake in the app or risk the entire service being shut off in the US.
The bill then landed at its last stop on President Biden’s desk, which Biden immediately signed. Now a drawn-out court battle is likely on the horizon over whether this ban violates the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
Senate Vote
The Senate voted to approve the TikTok ban bill by a massive 79-18 majority on Tuesday. The ban proposal was also tied to an emergency aid spending package for the countries of Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
The package allocated $95 billion in foreign aid to countries struggling with recent conflicts.
Accusations of Control
Democrat Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, gave comments Tuesday discussing the motivation for the bill.
Warner said the passage of the bill “goes a long way towards safeguarding our democratic systems from covert foreign influence,” and that Chinese companies “don’t owe their obligation to their customers, or their shareholders, but they owe it to the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government.”
Biden’s Comments
In the aftermath of the news that the bill had passed the Senate, Biden released a statement saying he would sign it “as soon as it reaches my desk tomorrow.”
The president’s statement focuses on the foreign aid package that he called “critical” without giving any mention to the TikTok section of the bill.
The President Is Still Using TikTok
Despite Biden signing this legislation that could lead to the ban of TikTok in the United States, his campaign for presidential reelection this year is still using the app to try to connect with its audience.
“There’s a core hypocrisy to the Biden administration supporting the TikTok ban while at the same time using TikTok for his campaign purposes,” said TikToker “Gen Z Historian” Kahlil Greene. “I think it illustrates that he and his people know the power and necessity of TikTok.”
Campaign Defense
In response to the accusation of the President engaging in double standards, the Biden campaign defended its use of TikTok.
“We would be silly to write off any place where people are getting information about the president,” said Rob Flaherty, deputy manager of the Biden campaign. In the campaign’s view, as long as the platform is still active, it doesn’t make sense to give up relationships they have built with TikTok influencers over the past few years.
Bill Requirements
Now that the bill has been signed into law, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has to sell its share of TikTok within a year. If ByteDance refuses to comply with these stipulations it would put the TikTok app in jeopardy in the entire United States.
US lawmakers argue that the influence that the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) has over Byte Dance and its collection of US user data makes it a national security risk.
Denial of Influence
According to the Wall Street Journal, Bytedance has said that even after the passage of this bill, it has no plans to sell its US TikTok business stake.
TikTok rejects claims they are controlled by the Chinese government. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” said TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in a 2023 hearing before US lawmakers.
History of Tracking Data
In 2023, a former ByteDance executive Yiantao Yu reported in a legal filing that members of the Chinese Communist Party had used data collected by the company in efforts to crack down on protestors in Hong Kong.
According to the filings, the CCP viewed data collected by Byte Dance to identify and locate protestors during the 2019-2020 civil rights demonstrations.
First Amendment Considerations
While the bill has finally been passed, the story is not over. TikTok has announced plans to challenge the law in the legal system under First Amendment grounds.
Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, wrote a memo to staff saying the law is a “clear violation” of the First Amendment and that “This is the beginning, not the end of this long process.”
Rejecting the Speech Narrative
Warner’s comments on the Senate floor Tuesday emphasized to TikTok users that the goal behind the legislation was not to silence voices or even ban TikTok outright.
“This is not an effort to take your voice away… I would emphasize this is not a ban of the service you appreciate,” Warner said. “We hope that TikTok will continue under new ownership — American or otherwise. It could be bought by a group from Britain, Canada, Brazil, France. It just needs to no longer be controlled by an adversary that is defined as an adversary in U.S. law.”
Little Is Likely To Change for TikTok Users in the Short-Term
The possibility of TikTok’s ban is a shadow that looms large over the current ongoing presidential contest as it draws closer to election day. The time frame set by the new law means that TikTok will not be banned ahead of the US presidential election, with the earliest possible ban date being in January 2025.
This means, importantly, that it’s possible that much of the backlash from a potential TikTok ban won’t be felt at the voting booths in November.
