The drama surrounding TikTok’s forced split from Chinese parent ByteDance continues with an eleventh-hour bill that would give the company more time to find a deal. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts introduced the TikTok Extension Act on Monday, which, if passed, would give the company another 270 days to free itself or be forced to shut down in the U.S. The Verge earlier reported on the news.
According to the law issued by President Biden in April of this year, TikTok was given until January 19 to find a new American owner. The company has so far been adamant that it has no interest in breaking away from parent company ByteDance, although new reports suggest the Chinese government is mulling a deal with sell TikTok to Elon Muskwhich would somehow be worse than a complete ban. After spending $250 million to support Trump’s presidential race, it looks like Musk could be getting a huge return on his investment. TikTok quickly denied the report.
Meanwhile, TikTok continues to fight for its survival through the courts, with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on the original law last Friday. While TikTok—along with many of its creators—argued that the ban would violate the First Amendment, the judges make sceptical. The government argued that such a ban was necessary for reasons of national security, not a violation of free speech rights because it sought to regulate the service, not the content created on that service.
In 2020, gay dating app Grindr was forced to split from its Chinese parent company after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) found that data could be used inappropriately to blackmail or intimidate US users. There is no evidence that TikTok data was used improperly or that the company tried to influence users’ views on any topic, which is another reason why the company resisted the ban. TikTok has argued that the Chinese government has no control over its operations, although the claim that the Chinese government is considering a deal for TikTok on its own undermines that thinking.
“TikTok has its problems,” Sen. Markey said Monday, adding “a ban on TikTok would impose serious consequences on the millions of Americans who depend on the app for social connections and their economic livelihoods. We cannot allow that to happen.” TikTok has more than 170 million monthly users in the United States.
In the case of strange bedfellows, President-elect Trump took a complete detour from his first term when he tried to shut down TikTok. He has since created an account on the app that has amassed over 14 million followers and now wants to prevent the ban from taking effect, at least until he has a chance to find a solution himself. Trump has warned against banning TikTok, saying it would only make Meta more powerful, even though it appears to be on good terms with CEO Mark Zuckerberg these days.
At the same time, TikTok users hedged their bets by piling on another Chinese short video app, RedNotewhich makes the whole idea of banning TikTok to protect against Chinese influence seem pointless. The people want TikTok and all its short garbage, like a pig in a trough.