Senate Considers TikTok Divestment Bill, Amidst Controversy and Concerns over Chinese Control

The U.S. Senate is considering legislation that would require Chinese owner ByteDance to divest the popular short video app TikTok’s U.S. assets. Senators Mark Warner and Maria Cantwell expressed hope that the app would remain in business in the U.S. under new ownership, acknowledging TikTok’s large user base of 170 million Americans, particularly young people, and emphasizing the importance of ensuring that the app is no longer controlled by an adversary.

TikTok has argued that the law amounts to a ban that would violate the free speech rights of its users, as the company maintains that it does not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed bipartisan legislation giving ByteDance nine months to divest TikTok, with a possible three-month extension. President Joe Biden has indicated that he would sign the legislation if approved by the Senate.

Senator Cantwell emphasized that Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage or surveillance on Americans, rather than to punish ByteDance or TikTok. She called the timeline for divestment reasonable and highlighted that requiring Chinese divestment from U.S. companies is not a new concept