US lawmakers are threatening to ban TikTok but also say they’re giving its Chinese parent company a probability to maintain it running.
The premise of a bipartisan bill headed for a vote within the US House of Representatives is that TikTok fans within the US can keep scrolling through their favorite social media app as long as Beijing-based ByteDance gives up on owning it.
![the Bytedance headquarters building in Beijing, China](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/people-walk-past-bytedance-headquarters-78275107.jpg?w=1024)
“It doesn’t should be this painful for ByteDance,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and bill co-sponsor, recently posted on X. “They might make it a lot easier on themselves by simply divesting @tiktok_us. It’s their alternative.”
But it’s not going to be so simple as lawmakers are making it sound, in line with experts.
WHO WOULD BUY TIKTOK?
While some people have voiced an interest in buying TikTok’s US business — amongst them “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary — there are a variety of challenges including a 6-month deadline to get it done.
“Someone would have to truly be able to shell out the big sum of money that this product and system is price,” said Stanford University researcher Graham Webster, who studies Chinese technology policy and US-China relations. “But even if anyone has deep enough pockets and is able to go into negotiating to buy, this type of matchmaking on acquisitions shouldn’t be quick.”
Big tech firms could afford it but would likely face intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators in each the US and China.
However, if the bill actually becomes law and survives First Amendment court challenges, it could make TikTok cheaper to purchase.
![demonstrates outside the U.S. Capitol following a press conference by TikTok creators to voice their opposition to the âProtecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act," pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2024.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/giovanna-gonzalez-chicago-demonstrates-outside-78271990.jpg?w=1024)
“One among the major effects of the laws would be to diminish the sale price,” said Matt Perault, director of the University of North Carolina’s Center on Technology Policy, which gets funding from TikTok and other tech firms. “As you approach that 180-day clock, the pressure on the corporate to sell or risk being banned entirely would be high, which might mean probably the acquirers could get it at a lower cost.”
HOW WOULD IT WORK?
The bill calls for prohibiting TikTok within the US but makes an exception if there’s a “qualified divestiture.”
That might only occur if the US president determines “through an interagency process” that TikTok is “now not being controlled by a foreign adversary,” in line with the bill.
Not only that, but the new US-based TikTok would should completely cut ties with ByteDance.
That features no more “cooperation with respect to the operation of a content suggestion algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing.”
It reflects longstanding concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance at hand over data on the 170 million Americans who use TikTok.
The concern stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to help with intelligence gathering.
It’s an unusual bill in the way in which that it targets a single company.
Typically, a government group led by the Treasury secretary called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or CFIUS, will review whether such a sale would pose any national security threats.
HASN’T THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?
Yes. The Trump administration brokered a deal in 2020 that will have had US corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok on national security grounds.
The deal would have also made Oracle accountable for hosting all TikTok’s US user data and securing computer systems to make sure national security requirements are satisfied.
Microsoft also made a failed bid for TikTok that its CEO Satya Nadella later described because the “strangest thing I’ve ever worked on.”
As a substitute of congressional motion, the 2020 arrangement was in response to then-President Donald Trump’s series of executive actions targeting TikTok.
However the sale never went through for a variety of reasons. Trump’s executive orders got held up in court because the 2020 presidential election loomed. China also had imposed stricter export controls on its technology providers.
Incoming President Joe Biden in 2021 reversed course and dropped the legal proceedings. Now Biden says he’s in favor a bill that will ban TikTok if ByteDance won’t divest, and Trump shouldn’t be.