TikTok’s Divestment Or Get Banned Bill, Passes In US Senate, Biden Set To Make It Law

The U.S. Senate voted by a wide margin  in favor of legislation that would ban TikTok in the United States if its owner, the Chinese tech firm ByteDance, fails to divest the popular short video app over the next nine months to a year. Driven by widespread worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access Americans’ data or surveil them with the app, the bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday and U.S. President Joe Biden has said he will sign it into law. The four-year battle over TikTok, which is used by 170 million people in the United States, is just one front in a war over the internet and technology between Washington and Beijing. Last week, Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab said Beijing had ordered it to remove Meta Platforms’ (META.O), opens new tab WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China over Chinese national security concerns.