But don’t write off TikTok just yet. US lawmakers, the White House, and competitors like Meta Platforms which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp have been trying to kill TikTok for years. Indeed, Trump began railing against TikTok just two years into his term in office. While in the White House, Trump even signed an executive order to ban TikTok unless it was acquired by a US company, alleging the Chinese government was using the video-sharing service to surveil millions of Americans. The order never went into effect after it was challenged in federal court.
The long-running saga of TikTok took a dramatic turn this past week. On March 13, the US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill that threatens to ban Chinese-owned viral short-video app TikTok unless it cuts ties with its Beijing-based parent ByteDance.
Dubbed “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”, it saw 197 Republican lawmakers and 155 Democrats voting for it; while 15 Republicans and 50 Democrats voted against. The bill now goes to the deeply divided US Senate where its prospects are unclear. President Biden, who faces a formidable challenge from his predecessor Donald Trump in November, has vowed to sign the bill if both houses pass it.
