WASHINGTON (CN) — As President Joe Biden signed off on a sweeping foreign aid package that included language aimed at clamping down on popular social media platform TikTok, the company’s chief executive panned the move Wednesday as designed to ban the app outright.
The Senate voted to approve the measure by a wide bipartisan margin Tuesday night, unlocking roughly $95 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. But the bill also included language about TikTok, which many lawmakers have argued poses a national security threat thanks to its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance.
The provision, made law Wednesday by the White House, requires TikTok to divest itself from ByteDance within roughly nine months. If it fails to do so, the federal government will block cloud service providers and app stores from listing the app in the U.S.
Proponents of the divestment push say they do not expect to ban TikTok but instead hope that the company seeks new ownership, preferably by an American firm. But opponents, including TikTok CEO Shou Chew, argue that a ban is the point.
“Make no mistake, this is a ban,” Chew said in a message to TikTok users posted on the platform Wednesday morning. “A ban on TikTok, and a ban on you and your voice.”
Chew argued that members of Congress who sponsored the legislation had expressed a desire to see TikTok banned in the U.S., although he did not name any lawmakers specifically.
Facing the threat of a ban, the TikTok CEO resolved to fight the newly enacted divestment mandate.
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” Chew said. “We are confident, and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again.”
TikTok sued the Trump administration in 2020 after it attempted to force ByteDance into selling the platform by executive order. The company secured a federal court injunction putting a hold on the former president’s effort and the Biden administration later reversed the order.
Chew also sought in his Wednesday message to tie TikTok to American values, pointing out that his platform provides users a space to express themselves freely.
“TikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard, and that’s why so many people have made TikTok a part of their daily lives,” he said.
The TikTok CEO pushed back once again on claims from lawmakers that Americans’ user data was not safe on TikTok, pointing to the company’s Project Texas, aimed at walling off U.S. data from the rest of the world.
“We have invested billions of dollars to secure your data and keep our platform free from outside manipulation,” said Chew.
The TikTok divestment rider attached to Tuesday’s aid bill represents the culmination of a monthslong legislative effort to slap limits on what has quickly become one of the most popular social media platforms in America.
In March, the House passed a similar bill with slightly stricter requirements — that measure would have given TikTok only six months to detach from ByteDance, rather than nine months as mandated under the new law.
Some members of Congress worried at the time that pulling regulatory levers on TikTok would hurt U.S. civil liberties.
“Banning TikTok is an insufficient Band-Aid solution to the genuine national security concerns the app raises and exposes,” said California Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove.
Chew has previously said divestment is not on the table for his platform.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity and data privacy groups had mixed reactions to the new law.
“TikTok, owned by ByteDance, presents significant cybersecurity concerns for the United States, primarily due to the potential exploitation of its vast user base and the Chinese company’s access to user data,” said Lisa Plaggemier, executive director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance.
Plaggemier contended the platform’s popularity and reach make it an attractive target for bad actors looking to undermine American national security.
“As such, policymakers face the critical task of balancing the benefits or information sharing and social connectivity with the imperative to protect citizens from cyber vulnerabilities inherent in platforms like TikTok,” she said.
However, Kate Ruane, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Free Expression Project, said the divestment rider is not only unconstitutional but also “a real blow to the free expression rights of 170 million people who create and engage with content on TikTok.”
“Congress shouldn’t be in the business of banning platforms,” Ruane said. “They should be working to enact comprehensive privacy legislation that protects our private data no matter where we choose to engage online.”
Follow @BenjaminSWeiss
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