Lawmakers continue to deliberate whether to ban the popular platform TikTok from being used in the U.S., as Bobby Kotick works to acquire the app.
It has been a solid couple of years now since U.S. lawmakers have decided on the status of the continued use of TikTok across the country. Now, a vote is close in the House following so much deliberation on Capitol Hill. The recent push to make a decision on the app’s legality was ramped up due to the interest of possible buyers. While the app could be shut down, former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has been working to acquire the social platform—despite TikTok being worth hundreds of billions.
The legislation essentially wants Beijing-based parent ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok or face the platform being banned from app stores and web-hosting services in the U.S. ByteDance would have a little more than five months from the enactment of the bill to comply. The app has seen upwards of 170 million Americans using the app, and even the alternative of making a U.S. portion of the app would be counterintuitive. The company stated how the app’s appeal was in making content on a global scale.
More recently, U.S. tech and media moguls have begun talks of acquiring TikTok. The most trending one was made by Kotick. Kotick already approached ByteDance Executive Chair Zhang Yiming to express his interest in an acquisition deal. To afford the deal, Kotick has been searching for partners. Reportedly, at a dinner at an Allen & Co. conference earlier this week, Kotick floated the idea of partnering to buy TikTok to a table of people, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, according to people familiar with the situation. The partnership with OpenAI would theoretically help TikTok by training its AI models.
U.S. lawmakers even called in the Singaporean CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, who was heavily questioned on his alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The concerns were based on the fact that the app’s Beijing-based parent would share data about its users with the Chinese government or promote Beijing’s propaganda and shape Americans’ political opinions through the app. Despite lawmakers moving towards banning the app, there has been a major outcry and concerns from millions of users who have supported the app.
Efforts were supposedly stalled up to this week when a new bill passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee 50-0. The new bill, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, aims to “protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications” such as TikTok. The full House is expected to hold a vote on this new bill on Wednesday.
While the U.S. government continues to move legislation, TikTok has already made efforts to store data in the U.S. through a program called Project Texas. All U.S. data is stored in the Oracle cloud, according to a TikTok spokeswoman, who said it has done more than other U.S. companies to separate and protect users’ data. Ultimately, through all of the rants and raving of TikTok in U.S. legislation, lawmakers have the last say in the matter but will face a lot of flak either way.
