US Senate approves TikTok ownership law, Biden now to sign
The US Senate on Tuesday approved a law aimed at forcing a change of ownership of popular video-sharing app TikTok.
The Senate approved the bill with 79 votes in the 100-seat upper chamber. It will now head to President Joe Biden, who had made it known that he would sign it into law should it reach his desk.
At that point China's ByteDance group, which owns the app, will have up to one year to divest itself of TikTok. Were the service to remain in the possession of the group, the law would lead to TikTok being banned from US app stores.
When asked about the vote, China's Foreign Ministry referred to earlier statements. Beijing had accused the United States of wanting to hinder competitive companies in other countries under the pretext of national security. China's government has never asked companies to illegally collect or provide data for them and will not do so, spokesman Wang Wenbin said in mid-March.
The measure was passed as part of a broader bill also including a Ukraine weapons aid package.
Sceptics of the measure point out that the law will likely spend years in the courts, saying it is sure to be challenged on free speech protections enshrined in the US Constitution.
In Washington, there have been fears for years about ByteDance's access to user data.
Some cybersecurity experts say the data could be used by Beijing to spread propaganda in the United States, spy on users and exercise other forms of influence.
TikTok, which says it has 170 million US users, rejects concerns and emphasizes that it does not see itself as a subsidiary of a Chinese company. ByteDance is 60% owned by Western investors. The company is based in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.
Critics counter that with a share of 20%, the Chinese founders have control thanks to higher voting rights and that ByteDance has large headquarters in Beijing.
TikTok is also coming under pressure in Europe.
On Monday the European Commission ordered TikTok to submit an assessment of addictiveness and mental health risks in its new app, TikTok Lite, which has been launched in Spain and France.
The commission also wants TikTok to demonstrate that it has complied with European Union laws requiring large platforms to mitigate such risks, particularly for children.
The legally-binding order concerns the new app's rewards scheme, which allows users to collect points by watching videos and exchange them for things of value, such as Amazon vouchers, according to commission officials.
The commission said it's concerned the rewards scheme "has been launched without prior diligent assessment of the risks it entails, in particular those related to the addictive effect."
The Chinese-owned company could face fines as high as 6% of its global annual revenue if it's found to have broken the EU's rules.
In a statement, the company said TikTok Lite's rewards scheme is not available to minors, and has a daily limit on the number of videos that can be watched for a reward.
