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President Joe Biden signed a bill forcing Bytedance to sell TikTok if it wants to continue operating in the United States. The bill is now in force and gives Bytedance 270 days to sell, with this period extendable by another three months. This bill was approved in just four days after it passed the House of Representatives before also passing the United States Senate yesterday.
TikTok has already issued an official statement that they will oppose the implementation of the law that is allegedly unfair. Previously, a measure to ban TikTok was passed in Montana but was successfully blocked through the courts because it was found to violate the right to free speech enshrined in the United States constitution.
The move to ban TikTok was initiated by the Trump administration in 2020. At that time a new company, TikTok Global was established with shares held by Bytedance, Oracle and Walmart. But after Trump lost the Presidential election, this effort was not continued by Biden until a new effort was restarted last year.
The United States wants to force Bytedance to sell TikTok because the platform is accused of spying and surveillance on behalf of China which is seen as posing a national security risk. These claims persisted even after U.S. user data was transferred into Oracle-owned browsers.