As the TikTok ban in the United States quickly approaches, lawmakers reminded Apple on Friday that they are on the hook for enforcement.
TikTok ban: the latest news
Recall that President Biden signed a bill to sell or ban TikTok in April. The bill did not explicitly ban TikTok, but gave its parent company, China-linked ByteDance, nine months to sell TikTok. That deadline expires next month, after which TikTok will be banned in the United States on January 19. The law was upheld by a court last week.
The law is the result of concerns that TikTok and ByteDance potentially pose a national security threat in the United States.
Starting January 19, app store operators like Apple and Google will be prohibited from hosting TikTok in the United States. In a new letter this week, House China Committee Chairman John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook reminding him of Apple’s responsibilities:
As you know, without a qualified sale of assets, the Act makes it illegal to “[p]roduce services to distribute, maintain, or update such a foreign-controlled app (including any source code for such app) through a marketplace (including an online mobile app store) through which users within the land or maritime boundaries of the United States can access, maintain, or update such an app.”
Under U.S. law, Apple must take the necessary steps to achieve full compliance by January 19, 2025.
The lawmakers sent a similar letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, as well as a new letter to TikTok CEO Show Chu. In the letter to Chu, the lawmakers said:
“The court held that “the First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States. Here, the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect data about individuals in the United States.[,]” and rejected all of TikTok’s constitutional claims… Congress acted decisively to protect the national security of the United States and protect American TikTok users from the Chinese Communist Party. We call on TikTok to immediately execute a qualified asset sale.”
While ByteDance still has just over a month to dig in and avoid a TikTok ban in the United States, time is certainly running out. Do you think the app will eventually be banned? Let us know in the comments.
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