After a month of stalemate, the key moment for TikTok is approaching: the speaker of the House Mike Johnson has decided to insert the rule that provides for the ban of the video platform from the United States (unless a disinvestment of its Chinese shareholders), in a aid package for Israel and Ukraine, which is expected to be approved on Saturday. The Senate, so far wavering on the trap regarding the app used by 170 million Americans, is expected to quickly vote on the package, and President Joe Biden has promised to sign everything immediately.
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In recent weeks the company’s lobbying activity, in particular from CEO Shou Chew, has been incessant. Many users have been bombarded with messages on the app encouraging them to protest to lawmakers over the proposed law, which gives ByteDance, the company that controls TikTok, almost a year (it was six months in an initial version) to find shareholders not based in China to sell their shares to. If the sale does not go through, the app would disappear from the app stores and could no longer be downloaded by American citizens. One of the potential buyers who was putting together a consortium is former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. TikTok, in a post on 7 million businesses and a platform would close.”
Read also: Anti-TikTok law in the US, the vote this week. Opposition and majority united
National security experts consider TikTok to be a propaganda and massive data collection tool for use by the Chinese government. Some parliamentarians, such as the libertarian Rand Paul, are convinced that such a law would be judged unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Donald Trump, who as president had first tried to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok, has in the meantime changed his mind. The malicious ones claim that the change of heart is linked to one of the most important Republican donors, Jeff Yass, who invested 22 million in the company that has just merged with Trump Media, and at the same time is a shareholder of ByteDance. But a bipartisan majority, like the commission that voted 50 to 0 a month ago to bring the bill to the floor for a vote, has now aligned itself with the concerns of the White House and the intelligence community.