The Wall Street Journal reports that the US government has asked the Chinese founders of the social network TikTok to withdraw from the company, or risk causing the banning of the short vertical video application in the United States. A threat similar to that of Donald Trump in 2020 but that the new President Joe Biden would have a better chance of implementing.
The United States is tightening the screw against the Chinese social network for the second time. According to an article published on Wednesday March 15, 2023 by the economic daily wall street journalthe US government has threatened the Chinese owners of TikTok with banning the app on their soil if they do not withdraw their investments from the company.
This announcement adds to the growing mistrust of several Western governments towards the company since the end of 2022, following two scandals of illegal access to the data of American journalists and European users by TikTok.
Reduce the risk of US data breaches
The threat is not made officially by the White House, but reported by a spokesperson for the American branch of TikTok, Brooke Oberwetter, according to the British press agency. Reuters. This request would come from the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), responsible for ensuring that companies owned by foreign companies do not jeopardize national security. The public body ” demanded that the app’s Chinese owners sell their shares“, under penalty of a “possible” banishment from the application at the federal level.
Founded in 2012, tech giant’s social network ByteDance is still 20% owned by its Chinese founders, retaining the majority of votes in company decisions. TikTok with more than 100 million users in the United States, the CFIUS and the American administration fear that their data could be accessed by the dictatorship in power in China.
A line of thought refuted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, declaring this Thursday, March 16 that “the United States has not yet provided evidence that TikTok threatens national security”, quotes Reuters. The spokesperson for its American branch also considered the threat unnecessary, considering that a “change of ownership would not impose new restrictions on data access or movement“.
Second ban threat for the White House
This is not the first time that the US administration has sought to force Chinese owners of TikTok to sell their shares. In 2020, the CFIUS already recommended that ByteDance withdraw from the company, followed by ex-president Donald Trump who brandished the same threat of a total ban on the social network on American soil.
TikTok was even close to selling its US branch to software company Oracle and supermarket giant Walmart before the court blocked Trump’s decision.
But the situation has changed: as recalledReuters, the White House recently backed a new bipartisan law that would give its administration new powers to ban foreign-based tech giants. If the case ends up in court again, President Joe Biden’s government may well win this time around.
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