On April 24th, 2024 congress voted on and passed a bill that would give money to Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel, and to ban the app TikTok.
Since 2020, it has been widely debated on whether or not to ban TikTok in this country. This started with former President Donald Trump, who believed that the app was a threat to the U.S.’s national security. Bills to ban the popular dance app have been introduced in the past but have never passed. Now, in a historical 78-18 vote, TikTok has been put on a year-long countdown timer for whether it will be bought out by an American company, or banned in this country and for all its citizens indefinitely.
Starting March 13th, 2024 the House of Representatives voted and passed the bill by a 360-58 vote, Putting the banning of this bill in motion. The bill gives TikTok nine months to sell the app and three more months in the event that a purchase is in motion.
This bill will take away the app from its 170 million users who use the app for a plethora of reasons and it’s 7 million users that sell and promote their products using TikTok.
Even though the clock is ticking down for TikTok, Bytedance doesn’t feel threatened. The CEO of TikTok, Shou Chew, is planning on suing the U.S. government because they see the bill as unconstitutional. He believes that this bill infringes on our constitutional right to freedom of speech. On the app he made a video promising to fight this bill in court like he has many times in the past.
Shou Chew has gone on TikTok making a response video on the matter and made a promise to the American people who are threatened with the loss of TikTok. On his official account he stated, “As you may have heard, Congress passed a bill that the President signed into law that is designed to ban TikTok in the United States… We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again.”
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If Shou Chew and Bytedance fight this in court the bill will be paused until a judge can come to a verdict which could give us extra months or years of TikTok in America.
Also, as a last resort Shou Chew and his team have created a secondary app called TikTok Notes, which is fully an American company that will be made in America, created by Americans, and owned in America. This will take away the government’s right to ban this last resort and what might be TikTok’s saving grace. In TikTok Notes, all of the data from TikTok will be transferred over to it in the event of TikTok being deleted in our country. It isn’t available at the moment in America, it is being tested in Canada and Australia before it reaches American app stores. The release date is unknown at the moment.
Even though TikTok Notes is being made as an alternative to the users that will soon be unable to use the main app, It won’t run like TikTok though. It won’t be a video app. It will be a pictures app like facebook and instagram that also has videos like TikTok. Many TikTok users have seen the way this new app functions as a little jab to Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, who has mentioned wanting to buy TikTok should the app be banned.
Although Shou Chew and his team will fight this, there is a high chance that TikTok will be banned in this country, but, we still have at least a year before it’s banned. That means we still have at least a year to enjoy our favorite videos and have our voices heard by its millions of users on our favorite app.
