Tiktok boss Shou Zi Chew has called on users of the video platform to oppose a possible ban on the app in the USA. “Protect your constitutional rights,” he said in an online video on Wednesday. “Make sure your voices are heard.” The 170 million Tiktok users in the USA should continue to share their stories on the platform – with relatives, friends and “your senators”.
The US House of Representatives voted with a large majority on Wednesday for a law that would force the Chinese internet giant Bytedance to sell its subsidiary Tiktok. Otherwise there is a risk of the successful video platform being banned. Bytedance is suspected of giving the Chinese Communist Party access to user data.
After the House of Representatives, it is the US Senate's turn to pass the bill – hence the Tiktok boss's appeal to users to contact the senators. Some influential senators have already spoken out against the bill.
The Republican ex-president and expected renewed presidential candidate Donald Trump also opposed a Tiktok ban this week. However, Trump made a 180-degree turn. During his presidency, he campaigned to take control of the app away from Bytedance.
The White House, however, has already announced that President Joe Biden would sign the bill if passed by both chambers of Congress and thus bring it into force. Beijing criticized the proposed law as “bullying behavior” and warned vaguely that this approach would “inevitably cause trouble for the United States.”
The US federal authorities have already banned Tiktok from their work cell phones due to data protection concerns. However, previous initiatives to ban the app nationwide had come to nothing. Tiktok has long since overtaken competitors such as Facebook and Instagram in terms of usage times. Tiktok has more than a billion users worldwide.
