TikTok CEO Urges US Users to Fight Against Potential Ban with New Bill in Congress

CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, is urging US users of the platform to raise their voices as a bill makes its way to the Senate that could potentially bring an end to TikTok in the United States.

Shou Zi Chew emphasizes in a video that seven million American businesses rely on TikTok for their revenue and that there are 170 million users in the US alone. He also points out that a ban on TikTok would only strengthen other social media giants like Meta and Snap, although he does not explicitly mention them in the video.

The bill itself does not directly target TikTok. It falls under the working title Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications, which prohibits the distribution, maintenance, or updates of any app if a "foreign adversary" has control over it and it reaches a certain user threshold in the US. If the app meets the outlined criteria, it must be divested from its parent company within 165 days, potentially through the sale of its American operations. Failure to comply will result in a ban of the app in the US. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, had previously considered spinning off the US operations of the app in response to similar concerns.