TikTok, the popular video app that has taken the world by storm, could soon be banned in the U.S. if a new bipartisan bill becomes law. The bill, introduced last week by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), would prohibit TikTok from operating in the U.S. unless its parent company, ByteDance, sells its stake in the app.
ByteDance is a Chinese company that has been accused of having ties with the Chinese Communist Party and collecting personal data from TikTok users. The bill’s sponsors, who are the top lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said that TikTok poses a national security threat and a censorship risk.
The bill would give ByteDance until August 31, 2024 to divest itself of TikTok, or else the app would become illegal to distribute from any U.S. app store or web hosting platform. The bill would also require the U.S. Department of Commerce to report to Congress on the status of TikTok’s divestment and the potential risks of allowing TikTok to continue operating in the U.S.
However, the bill faces opposition from some TikTok fans and investors, who argue that the app is a valuable source of entertainment, creativity, and income for millions of Americans. One of them is Kevin O’Leary, a billionaire entrepreneur and investor who is best known for his role on ABC’s Shark Tank.
O’Leary said on Fox News on Friday that he would buy TikTok if the app is about to get banned. “Not going to get banned, ’cause I’m gonna buy it,” O’Leary said on Fox News’ show “The Story.” He added, “Somebody’s going to buy it, it won’t be Meta and it won’t be Google, ’cause…regulator [will] stop that.”
O’Leary, who sold The Learning Channel to Mattel for $3.2 billion in 1999, praised TikTok as “one of the most successful advertising platforms in social media today” and said that “all my companies use it, I’ll buy it.”
TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek told The Hill that the bill is “an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it.” He said that the bill would “trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”
President Joe Biden said on Friday that he would sign the bill if it passes Congress, saying that he shares the concerns about TikTok’s relationship with China. Biden’s administration has been reviewing the previous administration’s efforts to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. company.
Back in August 2020, then President Donald Trump issued an executive order that aimed to ban TikTok in the U.S. unless ByteDance sold the app to a U.S. buyer. Several U.S. companies, such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Walmart, expressed interest in acquiring TikTok, but the deal never materialized as the 2020 presidential election drew near and Trump lost focus on the issue.
TikTok is currently the fourth largest social media platform in the world, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Since its launch in 2016, the app has been downloaded over 3 billion times. TikTok is known for its short-form videos that feature music, dance, comedy, and other viral content.