Senate passes bill to ban TikTok in US if Chinese owner ByteDance doesn’t sell it

The Senate has passed a bill to ban TikTok in the US if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, doesn’t sell it within the next nine months to a year.

The bill, which President Joe Biden is expected to sign into law, stemmed from concerns among lawmakers about potential data access and surveillance by China through the app. It had already passed the House of Representatives over the weekend and the president has alreayd indicated that he will sign it into law when it lands on his desk.

“For years we have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted,” Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said following the bill’s passage.

“A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America.”

Now, ByteDance has nine months to sell the company, with the possibility of a three-month extension if a sale is under way.

For the 170 million American users of the app, a ban would not automatically remove TikTok from their cellphones.

Instead, the app would be unavailable on Apple and Google’s app stores and so users won’t be able to download it and TikTok won’t be able to send updates or fixes.

TikTok has told its employees that it will fight attempts to ban the app in the US.

The company’s head of public policy Michael Beckerman sent a memo to staff saying the bill was a “clear violation of the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170 million American users”.

“We’ll continue to fight,” Mr Beckerman added. “This is the beginning, not the end of this long process.”

If ByteDance fails to divest TikTok, it could face severe restrictions impacting app stores and web hosting services.

Some senators, however,