The U.S. Congress passed TikTok's "Sell or Ban" bill

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Congress passed legislation late Tuesday that would prohibit or force parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok.

As part of a huge package to provide aid to Israel, Ukraine and elsewhere, the Senate approved the proposal by a vote of 79 to 18 and sent it to President Joe Biden — which was passed by the House of Representatives on Saturday. Biden issued a statement minutes after the Senate vote that he planned to sign the bill into law on Wednesday.

Once the bill is signed, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, will have about nine months to sell the app or face a nationwide ban, which the president may extend by 90 days.

The measure has received so much bipartisan support that it poses the most serious threat to the app's operations in the United States, where TikTok has more than 170 million users and has become an economic and cultural powerhouse. TikTok has countered fears that the company's ownership structure could give the Chinese government access to U.S. data by lawmakers pushing for restrictions, but it has largely not been adopted by U.S. lawmakers.

Geek Park previously reported that the embarrassment began in November 2019, when the U.S. government conducted a national security review of TikTok's parent company, ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly, focusing on the processing and storage of user data.

This was followed by a series of hearings in the U.S. Senate against the Chinese app TikTok between November 2019 and July 2020 with the goal of pushing legislation to ban TikTok's use in the United States.

In August 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump signed two executive orders. The orders are aimed at restricting TikTok's downloads, updates, and operations in the U.S., and require TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to divest its U.S. operations within 90 days. The ban was not implemented immediately, and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) subsequently initiated a national security review process for TikTok.

By June 9, 2021, the Biden administration issued a new executive order reversing the Trump-era ban on TikTok and WeChat. However, this does not mean that there is a relaxation of regulation of these applications. In fact, the measures have been even harder than they were under the Trump administration.

TikTok has tried a variety of efforts in the past to try to solve the problem. These include the creation of a "Transparency and Accountability Center," the creation of a Content Advisory Board, the creation of a dedicated U.S. Data Security Company (USDS) to manage U.S. users' data, the implementation of a data isolation program called "Clover" and a data security program called "Texas," both of which have annual operating costs of approximately $1 billion, the hiring of executives with U.S. backgrounds, and an agreement with Oracle that will make Oracle TikTok's U.S. Trusted Technology Providers", under the agreement, Oracle has the right to conduct security checks on TikTok's source code in the United States.

Past efforts, as well as a series of efforts by TikTok last month to block the proposal — including persuading users to complain to congressional representatives and running ads promoting TikTok's efforts on data security with just days left before the final vote — failed to convince lawmakers.

In January, TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Image source: "The Washington Post"

Last week, TikTok said in a statement: "Unfortunately, the House of Representatives, under the guise of diplomacy and humanitarian aid, is once again forcing through a ban bill that would trample on the free speech rights of 170 million Americans."

According to the Washington Post, while the bill appears to be moving quickly, the fact is that members of Congress and Biden administration officials have been working for months to develop the latest bill and expand its support base.

House lawmakers were able to rally further support for the bill in part because they bundled it with another piece of legislation that would prohibit foreign adversaries from buying Americans' personal information from data brokers. The proposal was led by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N. Jr., Democrat of New Jersey. J.), along with the TikTok Act, was included in the foreign aid package. If the bill is eventually signed, it will be one of the most important pieces of privacy legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in years, as lawmakers have previously failed to enact rules across the country.

After the House passed the independence bill, many senators initially expressed reservations about a swift follow-up. Among them was Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (Washington state), who offered to hold a hearing on the topic before taking action. But approval in the Senate rose after congressional leaders updated the bill to give ByteDance more time to divest from TikTok.

Even so, some liberal Democrats and liberal Republicans in the House and Senate continue to oppose the legislation, fearing that it would give the federal government too much power to restrict businesses or restrict online speech, including Senators Edward J. Markey and Rand Paul.

Paul, who has blocked some efforts against the app in the past, wrote in an op-ed last week that the bill "would infringe" TikTok users' "First Amendment rights" and "give the government the power to force the sale of other companies."

Speaking before the Senate on Tuesday, Markey "defended TikTok's users", warning that the bill "is likely to result in the banning of the most popular app among young Americans." Markey believes that the chances of the company being divested from ByteDance within a year are "very small".

Members of the House of Representatives have stepped up their efforts to restrict TikTok, putting new pressure on the Senate by pushing the bill forward as part of a broader package to provide aid to Israel and Ukraine, avoiding the potentially lengthy and contentious debates in the Senate.

But even if the bill passes, the controversy surrounding the issue may still need to be resolved after a lengthy trial in the courts.

According to overseas reports, it is speculated that TikTok's U.S. business may be worth between $35 billion and $40 billion. BusinessInsider has even put together a list of potential buyers: including former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Microsoft, among others.

But at this stage, even if there are buyers who are interested in buying, ByteDance will most likely not have any negotiations with them, but will continue to fight lawsuits, fight to the end, and wait for changes in time.