US President Joe Biden is expected to sign a law today that is sure to raise tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The upcoming law, which has already been approved by the US Congress and indeed with a large majority, will call the ByteDancethe Chinese parent company of TikTok, to sell the video-sharing app in question if it wants it to continue to be available in the US.
Based on what is predicted, if ByteDance, a Beijing-based company, does not sever its proprietary ties with TikTok, then it will cease to be available as an app in US app stores.
The vast majority of members of the US Congress, not only Republicans but also Democrats, now appear to see TikTok as potential threat to US national security… if that remains under Chinese ownership.
TikTok for its part, which has 170 million users in the United States, says it will take legal action against the new law.
How will the ban work in practice?
The ban is about to take effect after a period of 270 daysunless ByteDance sells TikTok to a non-Chinese company in the meantime.
Based on the new US legislation, app stores (Apple’s App Store, Google Play) would be required to withdraw the TikTok application from their online stores. At the same time, internet service providers would also be required to block web access to TikTok’s website.
Individual users within the US who already have TikTok installed on their mobile phones could continue to use it without penalty at the individual level, but they would no longer be able to “download” new updates for the app in question, but neither and reinstall it if they delete it or want to move it to other phone devices.
What would the ban mean for users in the US?
TikTok’s video-sharing app is already installed on millions of phones in the United States, which is the biggest market for TikTok worldwide.
Even if the ban goes into effect after a period of 270 days, TikTok is not going to suddenly disappear from the mobile phones of its users in the US.
What will happen in such a case, as mentioned above, is that existing users will no longer be able to “download” new updates, nor will they be able to “download” the app again if they delete it or want to install it on another phone.
Since access to new updates will be lost for users in the US, over time existing old versions of the video-sharing app will become obsolete and, at some point, non-functional, the FT explains in its analysis.
US: First step to ban TikTok
A ban on TikTok in the US would, however, have a huge impact on the e-commerce market, according to the Financial Times.
TikTok stands out as one of the biggest players on its fronts social commerce and his shoppertainment: that is, where entertainment content is combined with advertising and users are “bombarded” with personalized ads selected based on algorithms.
The TikTok claims to be used by more than 7 million small businesses in the US by 2024.
Banning it could favor competing services like the Instagram Shopping and Amazon Inspire, but also to influence the way young Americans “read” news. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 1/3 of adults under 30 say they rely on TikTok for their news updates.
What can TikTok do to block the ban?
Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy in the US, informed staff this week that the company plans to take legal action against the threatened ban. This should, however, have been done within one period of 165 days after the law was signed.
Under new export rules that have been in effect in China since 2020, Beijing can block any deal to sell Chinese technology to Americans. For its part, China’s Ministry of Commerce has underlined that it will “strongly oppose” a forced sale of TikTok.
With information from FT
Tags: TikTok Congressional Ban Means
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