China’s TikTok is reportedly exploring options to circumvent a sales ban passed by the US Senate on Tuesday night, sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature. There is.
TikTok intends to do everything it can to fight a bill that would force China-based parent company ByteDance to sell its social media platform or face a ban in the U.S., one person said. That’s what it means. report Written by Axios.
Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok Inc., speaks at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, Wednesday, November 16, 2022. The New Economy Forum is hosted by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP. Parent company of Bloomberg News.Photographer: Brian van der Beek/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Even after President Biden signs the bill, Chinese apps will reportedly consider multiple options, with the first option reportedly being to fight the bill in court.
Ironically, according to Axios Pro Tech Policy reporter Ashley Gold, the Chinese company — whose parent company is beholden to the communist regime — has signed the bill into law by the U.S. president. He plans to sue on First Amendment grounds. Breitbart News recently reported that TikTok plans to fire its general counsel, the executive who would have spearheaded this fight.
If this effort fails, TikTok reportedly plans to wait until after the U.S. election to see who the Chinese company will do business with next year.
Notably, the soon-to-be-signed Divest or Ban bill will give ByteDance nearly a year to sell TikTok before the app is banned in the United States.
As a last resort, ByteDance could establish TikTok US as an independent company with its own shares, separate from China’s TikTok, said Dan Primack, author of Axios Pro Rata.
The Chinese Communist Party currently enjoys access to TikTok’s user data, and given that ByteDance is beholden to the communist regime, it will do whatever it can to keep that power intact.
TikTok insiders recently claimed that the company works very closely with its Chinese parent company ByteDance, despite its claims of independence. One insider said they were given fake U.S. executives to report to, while regularly sending sensitive user data to communist China. As Breitbart News reported:
As an example, Evan Turner, who worked as a senior data scientist at TikTok from April to September 2022, initially reported to ByteDance executives in Beijing, but at some point reported to executives based in Seattle. He said he was told to do so.
The only problem, Turner said, is that the American TikTok executive doesn’t exist except on paper.
After being told that she would be reporting to the Seattle-based executive, a human resources representative followed up with another conversation with Turner, stating that she would, in fact, continue to work with the Chinese ByteDance executive. a former TikTok employee said.
The Communist government could also “water down” TikTok sales by refusing to sell them with the app’s famous algorithms, Axios said.
As reported by Breitbart News, China is secretly lobbying the U.S. Congress regarding TikTok, a Capitol Hill staffer with knowledge of the situation said. TikTok also bought $2.1 million in TV ads in battleground states, apparently with the purpose of interfering in U.S. elections.
The move to ban TikTok in the U.S. unless ByteDance sells it comes as a long-standing criticism that Chinese communists run a popular social media platform that has proven dangerous to children and adolescents. It comes after concerns that its parent company has already been caught snooping on journalists. .
Additionally, TikTok is widely considered a national security threat, and lawmakers have already banned the Chinese app from U.S. government devices.
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