The Chinese company ByteDance this Friday guaranteed that it does not intend to sell TikTok, despite Washington’s threats to ban the video platform in the US if it does not cut ties with China.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed legislation that gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok (with a possible three-month extension if the deal goes through) or face being kicked out of Apple and Google stores in North America.
“ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok,” the company said today on Toutiao, a Chinese social media platform it also owns.
Bytedance also clarified that there is “nothing true” about rumors that the company is exploring options to sell TikTok without the algorithm used by the app.
TikTok already announced earlier this week that it would take legal action to block the law, which it considers unconstitutional.
“We will continue to fight for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we hope to win,” TikTok leader Shaw Tzu Chu, a native of Singapore, assured today.
Thanks to short videos, TikTok, which has attracted more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, has been accused for years in the US and Europe of causing addictive behavior among teenagers.
On Wednesday, TikTok suspended a feature that rewards screen time due to the risk of increasing addiction after the European Commission launched an investigation and threatened to suspend the app.
The GOP also accused the video platform of allowing Beijing to spy on and manipulate Americans.
That’s because a 2017 Chinese law requires local companies to hand over personal data that may be of national security interest when requested by authorities.
On Saturday, TikTok said a possible ban on the platform in the US would “violate the freedom of expression” of its 170 million users in the country.
A spokesman for the bid added that the law would “destroy seven million companies and shut down a platform that brings $24 billion (22.4 billion euros) a year into the North American economy,” in an “email” sent to news agency France-Press.
A possible Tik Tok ban was one of the options adopted by Democrats to win Republican support for a new $61 billion (€57 billion) military aid package to Ukraine.
In late March, Taiwan, which had already banned TikTok from government devices, declared the platform a “national security threat” due to “substantial control” by “hostile foreign entities.”
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.