Congress has recently passed a bill which will force TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to divest from the product in the United States. In response, ByteDance has said it would rather shut down operations in America.
First, it will appeal to Federal courts on First Amendment grounds. If the appeal fails, it will likely shut down in the United States. Using Virtual Private Networks will likely be a way around this ban. Politico says:
The tactic by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) highlights the wide range of uncertainties around the TikTok law — a historically unusual piece of legislation that demands the app be sold by its Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, or banned from the U.S. market.
TikTok calls the law unconstitutional and has promised a quick and aggressive challenge on First Amendment grounds. Legal experts say the speed with which the law moved could help TikTok’s case, especially if a court finds that Congress pushed it through without seriously weighing its implications for free speech.
China would be willing to forfeit monetary gain for data collection. While its algorithm is no doubt highly valuable, the data it collects must be its true purpose if it would rather shut down operations. Reuters says:
TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance’s overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent.
The politics behind the TikTok ban are complicated and do not cut exactly by party line. Many in the younger, more leftist, generation are very protective of TikTok, while Trump has called the TikTok ban a secret scheme to boost Meta’s power. Meta has shown time and time again that it will back institutional democrats, making any competition dangerous to the establishment.
READ NEXT: Google Takes Drastic Steps
