President Joe Biden recently signed into law a piece of legislation with serious repercussions for TikTok’s operations in the United States. The bill requires ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to sell its popular short-form video app within 270 days or face being banned from US app stores and internet hosting services that support it. If a sale is not completed by January 19, 2025 (extended with potential extension if necessary), new downloads of TikTok would be restricted as well as interaction with its content. This could potentially cut off millions of American users from the app they love and thousands of businesses that rely on it for their operations.
TikTok has threatened legal action against this law, calling it “unconstitutional” in a statement released by CEO Shou Chew via video message to TikTok’s 170 million US users. He added: “Rest assured: we aren’t going anywhere.” If the forced sale doesn’t take place and an effective ban occurs come January, many small businesses as well will struggle severely – most prominently restaurants seeking orders with interactive social media features using TikTok that now constitute over half a million businesses operating through its app.
Many Americans’ rights are threatened by this legislative bill to the contrary as outlined in First Amendment expert Nadine Farid Johnson’s policy directive from Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, where she emphasised longstanding Supreme Court precedent protecting Americans’ freedom of information and accessibility is curtailed under the ban. In response to previous attempts by lawmakers regarding this matter back in March 2021, Chew pledged that TikTok would continue fighting against such unconstitutional legislation, including legal measures with exercising “legal rights”. A long road lie ahead should Joe Biden and co endorse a court challenge as threatened.
The bill’s passage comes after Congress passed it earlier this week alongside support for Israel and Ukraine foreign aid packages meant to combat ongoing geopolitical crises in the region. It is the most significant threat TikTok has faced from American authorities, since allegations over cybersecurity and user privacy raised their concerns with US officials as far back as 2020.
China’s export control policies have previously caused complications for ByteDance to relinquish ownership of its algorithmic recommendation engine that powers TikTok’s success in the United States, which could pose a significant obstacle if Beijing does not allow it to be sold off entirely or with algorithms attached.
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