President Biden has signed into law a bill which gives the social media platform’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to divest the app or it will be blocked in the US.

This law is being introduced because the United States fears that the owners of the app, ByteDance might share its user’s data with the Chinese government. This is claim that the owner of TikTok has vehemently denied.

TikTik responded to this proposed ban with the following statement, “We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail,”.

“The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation,” it continued, “This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.”

The bill had widespread support from lawmakers, with 79 Senators voting for it and 18 against. A top republican on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Marco Rubio said, “For years we’ve allowed the Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America… that was dangerously short-sighted,”,”A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America,” he added.

TikTok has said ByteDance “is not an agent of China or any other country”. ByteDance insists it is not a Chinese firm, pointing to the global investment firms that own 60% of it. Regardless if representatives of the app deny all speculation that they might be sharing data with the Chinese government, ultimately the final decision is left up to the U.S. government and as it currently stands the app will need to be sold to an American company or banned entirely from the United States.

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