By: Anya Chen

On April 24th, Biden signed legislation on April 24th that gave TikTok’s parent company a year to divest from TikTok, or else it would be sold or banned in the United States. Legislators worry that the app could give user data to the Chinese government.

Another thing lawmakers are concerned about is the spread of misinformation. With the current Israel-Hamas war, critics are saying that TikTok has allowed antisemitism to spread. TikTok has denied these allegations and has tried to distance itself from its parent company, ByteDance.

ByteDance may be putting sensitive information, like location and user data, into the Chinese government. Lawmakers are pointing to laws in China that allow the government to secretly demand information from companies and citizens for intelligence gathering operations. Thus, the U.S. government is looking into banning the app.

India banned the app in June of 2020, costing ByteDance one of its biggest markets. Other countries and 30+ states have joined the U.S. into banning it on government-issued devices. “Apple and other companies that operate app stores have the ability to block downloads of apps that no longer work. They also ban apps that carry inappropriate or illegal content,” said Justin Cappos, a professor at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering.

At this moment, TikTok is still available in the U.S. The company sued the federal government and they may try to block export of the technology in the app. Issues like this can take a long time to resolve.

Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/article/tiktok-ban.html