President Joe Biden signed a bill on Wednesday that could effectively ban TikTok in the United States. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll be without the app now or any time soon.
As with any calculation, things are complicated. The bill signed by Biden is primarily a foreign aid package that includes $60 billion to Ukraine to combat the Russian invasion and about $26 billion to Israel and aid in Gaza. However, tied to that bill was a law that gave ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, up to a year to divest from the app in the US
Essentially it is a demand to sell or ban.
President Biden signs bill banning TikTok
So what happens now? In short, a legal dispute. TikTok announced almost immediately on Wednesday that it planned to challenge the legislation in court.
“Make no mistake, this is a ban,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in a video posted to the company’s platform on Tuesday.
Chew promised a fight. And to be clear, there won’t be any real changes for TikTok users in the short term.
“Rest assured, we’re not going anywhere,” Chew said in the TikTok. “We are confident and will continue to fight for your rights in court. The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again.”
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Lawmakers opposing TikTok have argued that because the app is owned by a Chinese company, it could be forced to hand over American users’ data to the Chinese government. That would be concerning considering the app has 170 million American users. Other lawmakers in other countries have successfully made similar arguments to ban or restrict the app.
TikTok has flatly and routinely denied that it shares U.S. user data with the Chinese government.
TikTok has already fought off bans in court, most notably in Montana last year.
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” TikTok said in a statement Wednesday after Biden signed the bill. “We believe that the facts and the law are clearly on our side and that 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.”
So what’s next?
Well, as The Verge noted, if TikTok gets a court to agree with the company or delay enforcing the legislation, the deadline for a ban would be extended. In other words, as is common practice when taking something to court, TikTok could drag things out.
And of course, even if the legislation is upheld, ByteDance will have at least nine months to decide whether it will sell the app in the US. The time frame can be extended to one year if the president believes there is progress on a deal.
The next year will be full of lawyers, laws and a PR push for TikTok in the US. Perhaps the greatest tool at the company’s disposal is its huge user base. Remember when Congress was flooded with calls when a pop-up window asked users to call lawmakers? You can expect more messaging from the company as it fights to stay in the US
But for a regular user, the next year of TikTok might look like the last year of TikTok. For now everything remains as it was. You will see videos of people dancing, cute dogs, good food, music, jokes and all that.
But hanging over everything will be the fight for the long-term survival of the app.