It gave the US the option to kill the TikTok platform

TikTok offered a ‘kill switch’ in 2022, a dead man’s switch that could take the platform offline to address data concerns. Eventually, things took a turn for the worse: The U.S. government believed that TikTok was sharing American user data with the Chinese government and had to sell the ByteDance app to sever those potential Chinese ties.

Bite Dance vs America

ByteDance denies sharing data with the Chinese government and criticizes the law requiring TikTok to be sold: “This law is a radical break from this country’s tradition of protecting an open internet. It sets a dangerous precedent that if politicians don’t want to express a platform’s opinion, they can force it to sell or even shut down.

TikTok is appealing the law. It says the U.S. government has rejected any serious settlement talks after 2022 and is unwilling to accept a dead man’s shift as evidence of its willingness to do the bite dance. The idea is that when using that button, the US government will be given the power to suspend the site if it doesn’t follow certain rules, but according to the Chinese company, Americans don’t need that.

Appeal

Now it’s the other way around: TikTok is deemed not to adhere to the rules, and the app must be sold accordingly. The US government is said to have ignored calls to discuss the matter further, including an offer to investigate the transparency center set up in Maryland, US. We’ll hear in September what the judge ultimately rules on the dispute between the US government and TikTok. If the US government prevails, TikTok has until January 2025 to divest the US portion of TikTok. And then Americans won’t be able to access the social video platform.

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