TikTok is on Congress’ chopping block

The Future. Two bills introduced in Congress this week could effectively ban TikTok for everyone in the US. While TikTok has been trying to strike a deal that would effectively siphon off American user data from ByteDance’s oversight to keep operating in the US, recent revelations of data sharing and spying may give Congress enough evidence to simply shut it down, just like in India.

Bipartisan beatdown
Gen Z is probably going to riot if Congress passes two new bills that could restrict TikTok in the US.

• The RESTRICT Act gives the Secretary of Commerce the power “to ban foreign technologies and companies from operating in the US if they present a threat to national security,” according to The Verge.
• The bill focuses on companies from China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela that have access to “sensitive personal data” from more than one million Americans.
• It also allows the Commerce department to force American companies to divest from companies it deems harmful.

•  The DATA Act would give The White House the power to “sanction or ban TikTok if the administration determined it shared US user data with individuals associated with the Chinese government.”
• The bill is an obvious swipe at TikTok, but backers also put a target on Chinese firms such as Huawei and ZTE.

The official punt
TikTok has responded by saying the Biden Administration could approve the deal it’s been negotiating with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for the past three years (which the White House has been reviewing for six months).

But with the White House publicly backing the RESTRICT Act, it probably doesn’t want to be the one responsible for killing your endless scroll.