The latest move to ban TikTok in the United States could have dramatic consequences for the business world and beyond – if it succeeds.
Who’s watching you read this right now? That depends on your operating platform, device, web browser and settings – and the laws in your particular country.
It’s the same thing if you’re watching videos on TikTok. Except now we also have to take the Chinese government into account. TikTok is Chinese-owned, and China is a communist country, so that means Xi Jinping is in charge of the user data TikTok collects – maybe even your user data [points finger].
If you happen to be one of the 170 million TikTok users in the United States, don’t worry, the House of Representatives has the solution: President Xi can’t spy on you if you’re not even there. On Wednesday, the House passed a bill that would force TikTok’s owners to sell off the company within 165 days, or have it banned in the U.S.
House votes to BAN Tik Tok! pic.twitter.com/tfZMdXwZBa
— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) March 13, 2024
Will this bill actually pass the Senate? Is this the end for TikTok? Will we have to go back to using Vine again? We have the answers to all these pressing questions before you start betting at top-rated sportsbooks on TikTok’s future.
Will The Senate Pass The TikTok Bill?
It’s hard to imagine the House and Senate agreeing on anything these days. In this particular case, even though the House bill (H.R.7521 – Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act) passed 352-65 with strong bipartisan support, the Senate is understandably leery of enacting this legislation.
“Cutting out a large group of young voters is not the best-known strategy for re-election,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told reporters earlier this week. Durbin is the No. 2 Democrat in the upper chamber; the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said they’ll review the legislation, but he wasn’t about to set any deadlines.
It isn’t just Senate Democrats who are spooked by this bill. Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning senator for Kentucky, has been vocal in his opposition; Paul helped quash similar legislation from getting passed last year around this time. Oh, and Paul is bankrolled by billionaire Jeff Yass, the managing director of the Susquehanna hedge fund and the leading American investor in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) is also in the quasi-libertarian camp, and also opposed to the TikTok ban. That makes enactment even less likely in a Senate that the Democrats (with the help of all three independent senators) control 51-49.
Is This the End for TikTok?
Don’t bet on it. Even if the Senate enacts this legislation as written, ByteDance will simply take them to court, where there’s every chance they’ll win.
Judges across the U.S. have already rebuffed similar attempts to shut down TikTok, both at the state and federal levels. These attempts “are clearly pretextual and designed for political theater,” Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman told CNN last December.
But let’s say the courts oblige this time. From a practical standpoint, it would be difficult for ByteDance to divest themselves of TikTok within the required 165 days – and why would they sell one of the world’s most popular websites (No. 13 on the Similarweb rankings) when it’s raking in money from across the globe?
Will I Have to Use Vine Again?
No need to worry, Vine is dead for now; Twitter shut down their short-form video hosting service in 2017. Vine co-founder, Dom Hofmann, then launched Byte in 2020, but that was discontinued last May. There’s always YouTube Shorts if you’re desperate enough for vertical videos.
Even if they do ban TikTok, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it. The bill as written prohibits “distributing, maintaining, or providing internet hosting services for a foreign adversary controlled application (e.g., TikTok).” That means you won’t be able to get it from your app store, and your internet service provider might block you from visiting TikTok’s website directly.
There are ways around this, of course. TikTok is banned across India and a handful of other countries, but all you need to skirt that is a good virtual private network (VPN). These extensions hide your IP address and assign you one from another country or region, so it looks like you’re browsing from somewhere else.
In the meantime, if you are concerned about the Chinese government or anyone else accessing your TikTok user data, either don’t use the service, or change your browser habits and settings to make them more private. This is the internet, after all. It’s not the Cone of Silence.
