A few weeks ago, US President Joe Biden made his official debut on TikTok via a channel set up by his 2024 election campaign. Now, he says he will sign a bill that could ban the social network in the US unless it breaks away from its China-owned parent company.
The Hill reports that Biden spoke to reporters today, and when one of them asked about the bill that's currently going through the US Congress, Biden stated, "If they pass it, I’ll sign it."
Officially, the bill is called the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. On Thursday, the US House of Representatives House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously, 50-0, to send it to the full House, where it could vote to approve it as early as next week.
The bill would then have to be voted on by the US Senate. If it is approved at that stage, it will be sent to Biden for his signature to become law. If that happens the US will demand that TiTok's parent company ByteDance sell off its interest in the social network within 165 days. If ByteDance fails to do that, the bill says that the US will ban TikTok from app stores.
The bill has gained bipartisan support because lawmakers believe that ByteDance could gather data via TikTok that could be sent over and used by the Chinese government. In defense of the bill, lawmakers have stated this is not about censoring content on TikTok but instead about keeping the nation's data away from its adversaries.
ByteDance has repeatedly denied it will send TikTok data to the Chinese government. In the days before Thursday's House committee voice, it launched an online campaign, asking its users to call their US representatives and ask them not to vote for the bill.
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