TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told the platform’s users that “we aren’t going anywhere” after US President Joe Biden signed the sell-or-ban bill targeting the app into law, giving TikTok’s Chinese parent company nine to 12 months to divest.
“The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again,” Chew said in a video on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The passing of the bill after months of threats is a clear wake-up call for other Chinese apps that see the US as a top destination for their business expansion or have already entered the market there.
Details: The countdown to the forced sale of TikTok began when Biden signed the bill on April 24, but the short video app’s 170 million American users will continue to have access to it during this period. TikTok is expected to robustly challenge the move in the US courts.
- The law comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken begins his visit to China, where he expects to meet the country’s foreign minister Wang Yi.
- Former editor-in-chief of Chinese media outlet Global Times, Hu Xijin, who is known for his nationalist stance, wrote on X that TikTok should “fight to the end”, hours after the Senate ruled on the platform on Wednesday. He said he believes it will be “meaningless” if ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming “loses this career and only gets some money.”
- On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented it had nothing more to add to the country’s stance on the TikTok ban as the government institution said it has already made clear its position that there would be “no fairness to speak of” if the US uses national security reasons to ban foreign companies.
Context: TikTok, along with its Chinese owner ByteDance, spent over $7 million on in-house lobbyists and digital ad campaigns this year in an effort to avert the bill passing, according to lobbying disclosure reports cited by CNBC.
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