Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC Thursday that he is putting together an investor group to try to buy TikTok. The announcement comes after House lawmakers voted in favor of banning the app, unless it spins off from its Chinese owner, ByteDance. It’s the furthest any federal TikTok legislation has gotten, and while the social media platform faces a “steeper path” in the Senate, President Joe Biden said he would sign the bill should it reach his desk. Meanwhile, some small U.S. business owners say outlawing the app would threaten their livelihoods.
- In a surveyof more than 1,000 small business owners who use TikTok, 45% attributed “a meaningful portion” of their success to the platform.
- TikTok counts more than 170 million users in the U.S.
The decision to ban TikTok will backfire on the United States: China’s warning.
The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, has stated that ‘the United States has found no evidence of national security threats from this app (TikTok)’ and has accused the United States of ‘suppressing TikTok’.
Wang further stated ‘such tactics cannot win in fair competition, and they disrupt the business activities of companies and damage the confidence of international investors.’
He warned that this decision will backfire on the United States.
Chinese media has also criticized this decision, and several newspapers have published satirical cartoons mocking American efforts to ban the app.
Global Times has accused the United States of adopting an ‘ugly behavior’ and alleged that it used ‘national security’ as a pretext to ban the app.
It should be clear that like other social media platforms in China, TikTok is also banned. However, users in the country use a similar app called Duoyin, which is only available in China and is under government surveillance and censorship.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a firm registered in the Cayman Islands in Beijing.
If the American bill becomes law, ByteDance will have to sell TikTok within six months or face a ban from American app stores and web hosting platforms.
Last week, TikTok sent a message to many of its American users asking them to call their representatives to prevent the government from ‘taking away the constitutional right to freedom of expression from 170 million Americans’.
In response, the House China Select Committee sent a letter to the company asking it to stop ‘spreading false claims in its campaign to incite American citizens and protest on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party’.
TikTok denies any kind of relationship with the Chinese government and the company says that it has reorganized to keep American data in the United States.