It is indeed a fact that 150 million people from America use the Tik Tok application each month which makes Americans to be the greatest and largest audience Tik Tok has. According to Carr, Tik Tok harvests swaths of sensitive data that is accessed in ‘Beijing' since the developers behind it, ByteDance are partly owned by the Chinese state.
Actually, ByteDance has previously been mocked for their connection with the Chinese Communist Party.
Of course, this had to leave the United States government concerned obviously having it in mind that China will use the data to it's advantage of espionage.
Lawmakers infact worry that China controls the application’s algorithms to push propaganda or misinformation but Tik Tok however denies sharing information with the Chinese government.
That, however, cannot stop the United States government from going forward with their decision to ban this app from their country.
In 2022, the Federal Communications Commission Commissioner urged the technology companies to remove Tik Tok from the American app stores but all these attempts fell through.
Though, they seem to be a concern again since Joe Biden told the reporters on Friday 8th March that if a bill of banning Tik Tok from America came to pass he would sign it.
Now, in the new Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act this ban is being put forward.
The act is a twelve page document that explains that it was created to protect the National Security of the United States from the threat posed by the foreign adversary Controlled Applications for example Tik Tok and any successor application or service and any other application or service developed by ByteDance Ltd or an entity under the control of ByteDance Ltd.
This definitely is another way of saying that ByteDance has to change its basic ownership structure.
Rep. Mike Gallagher said, “Tik Tok can continue to survive, people can continue to do all the dumb dance videos they want on the platform, friends and all that stuff. But the basic ownership structure has to change."
The United States wants ByteDance to be sold off so it has no ties to the Chinese government.
Definitely this does not make China happy.
The Tik Tok CEO, Shou Zi Chew, said in a statement, “This bill is an outright ban of Tik Tok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive five million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”
However much Tik Tok tries to defend it's ownership not being connected to the Chinese government, the United States government is set to ban its use in their country.
Infact, the bill is slated to get a vote on the House floor next week.
Is it really about banning Tik Tok from the United States or is it for another cause?
