Top lawmakers on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) House of Representatives Select Committee on Friday told Apple and Google to prepare to remove TikTok from their app stores as a possible ban next month looms.
Committee Chairman John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) are joined by Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google's Sundar Pichai. In a pair of letters to CEOs, the companies said they “must take the necessary steps to ensure that happens.” Be in full compliance with the law by January 19th.
Under a law passed by Congress earlier this year, TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance is required to exit the popular social media app or face a ban from U.S. networks and app stores. You will have to face it.
The law gives ByteDance about nine months until January 19th to sell TikTok. President Biden, who signed the bill into law in April, could give the company another 90 days to complete the sale.
On Friday, the two lawmakers wrote a separate letter to TikTok CEO Hsu Chiu, urging the company to “immediately execute a qualifying sale.”
“Congress has given TikTok ample time to take the necessary steps to become compliant,” Moolenar and Krishnamoorthy wrote. “In fact, TikTok has spent 233 days pursuing a solution that protects U.S. national security.”
TikTok's future in the United States is becoming increasingly uncertain after a federal appeals court upheld the law last week. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that TikTok did not violate the First Amendment as claimed.
TikTok now plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, asking the D.C. Circuit to put the law on hold pending appeal.
“The Supreme Court has a historic record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we look forward to seeing it do just that on this important constitutional issue.” I mentioned it in the post.
“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and enforced based on inaccurate and flawed hypothetical information, resulting in blatant censorship of the American people.”
