• US president Joe Biden says he would sign the legislation if Congress passes it, which gives China’s ByteDance about six months to divest the popular TikTok short video app.
  • Meanwhile, presumptive 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump warns such a move would let Facebook ‘double their business’

OUR TAKE
Although Biden and the Committee has negative attitude on TikTok, Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, believes that if TikTok leaves the U.S. market, it will lead to an expansion of Facebook’s market and he doesn’t want Facebook get succeed.
This may have something to do with the fact that he had criticized Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms, opens new tab for revoking his access to Facebook and Instagram after removing two of his posts during the January. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. US President Joe Biden announced today he would sign legislation forcing Chinese tech giant ByteDance to divest from its popular social media platform, TikTok.
-Jennifer YU, BTW reporter

US President Joe Biden announced today he would sign legislation forcing Chinese tech giant ByteDance to divest from its popular social media platform, TikTok.

The legislation

The legislation, known as the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, “has garnered bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce (HEC) passed the bill by a unanimous 50-0 vote on Thursday.

This legislation designed to curb the influence of foreign-controlled apps in the United States. Specifically, it would give ByteDance 165 days to divest from TikTok. If it failed to do so, app stores run by Apple, Alphabet’s Google and others can’t legally offer TikTok or serve other apps controlled by ByteDance. The bill is expected to be voted on as early as next week.

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Trump’s warning

But Trump, presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee issued a warning after Biden’s comments on Friday. Despite Trump’s past opposition to this popular app.

“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook … will double their business,” the former president said on Friday in a post on his social med ia platform Truth Social, alluding to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta.“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last election, doing better,” Trump added, which referring to the 2020 US presidential race.