By Ari Paul
A bipartisan effort to effectively ban the social media network, TikTok in the United States has taken a great leap forward. The House of Representatives voted 352–65 that the network’s parent company, ByteDance must divest itself from Chinese ownership.
Lawmakers contend that “TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a national security risk because Beijing could use the app to gain access to Americans’ data or run a disinformation campaign” (New York Times, 3/13/24). While proponents of the legislation say this is only a restriction on Chinese government control, critics of the bill say this constitutes an effective ban.
