Both houses of the U.S. Congress have passed a bipartisan bill that would require Chinese company ByteDance to sell the popular video app TikTok or face a ban in the United States.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R. 7521), which would protect Americans and prevent foreign adversaries like China from targeting, surveiling, and manipulating the American people through online applications such as TikTok, was passed in the Senate by the 79 to 18 votes Tuesday.
The Bill had passed overwhelmingly in the House on Saturday.
The measure was passed as part of a wider foreign aid package.
It will become law once President Joe Biden, who supports the legislation, signs it.
The Bill requires Beijing-based Bytedance to divest TikTok and other applications it controls within 180 days after enactment of the bill, failing which, those apps will be prohibited in the United States.
TikTok chief Shou Zi Chew had already warned that enactment of the Bill that would potentially ban TikTok will put more than 300,000 American jobs at risk, and would take “billions of dollars out of the pockets of creators and small businesses”.
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