7Photo© hindustantimes.comUS Senate Passes TikTok Divestment-or-Ban Bill, President Joe Biden Set To Make It Law Soon
Washington, DC: The U.S. Senate voted by a wide margin late Tuesday 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 on Wednesday.
“For years we’ve allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted,” said Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee. “A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America.”