The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in support of legislation that would ban TikTok in the United States if its owner, Chinese tech giant ByteDance, fails to sell the popular short video app within the next nine months to a year.
Driven by widespread concerns among US politicians that China may use the app to access Americans' data or spy on them, the House of Representatives approved the measure on Saturday. President Joe Biden stated that he will sign it into law on Wednesday.
"For years we've allowed the Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously short-sighted," 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."
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The four-year struggle for TikTok, used by 170 million people in the United States, is only one front in Washington and Beijing's war over the internet and technology. Last week, Apple (AAPL.O) said that Beijing had ordered the removal of Meta Platforms' (META.O) WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China due to Chinese national security concerns.
