The US Senate Supports The Transfer Of TikTok Ownership But Still Hopes To Operate In The US

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, supports TikTok divestment (photo: x @MarkWarner)

JAKARTA - Two US senators expressed their hope that TikTok will continue operating in the US under new holdings as the Senate prepares to vote on Tuesday 22 April, regarding legislation requiring Chinese owners, ByteDance, to release TikTok assets in the US.

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat, said legislators were aware that the popular short video app was used by 170 million Americans, especially young people.

"To the American youth, I would like to say, we hear your concerns and we hope TikTok will continue with new holdings - America or others - from Britain, Canada, Brazil, France. However, it is no longer controlled by hostile parties," Warner said.

Support raised over concerns that China could access American citizen data or conduct a survey of them with the app, the US House of Representatives passed cross-party legislation on Saturday 19 April, which would give ByteDance nine months to release TikTok with a possible three-month extension.

If the legislation is approved by the Senate, US President Joe Biden has said that he will sign it into law. But TikTok has said they will challenge the order in court.

TikTok, which claims to have never shared US user data with the Chinese government, has argued that the law is a ban that would violate US users' right to free speech.

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Maria Cantwell said Congress was not acting to punish ByteDance or TikTok but "to prevent foreign enemies from espionage, surveillance, malicious operations, which could harm vulnerable Americans."

He said the time given was natural. "This is not a new concept to demand Chinese divestment from US companies," Cantwell said. "We give people the choice here to fix this platform."

However, Democratic Senator Ed Markey said that it is likely that ByteDance will not be able to carry out divestment that retains applications to US users. "We have to be very clear about the possible outcomes of this law. This is actually just a ban on TikTok," he said.

"The limitation is not who we are as a nation. We must not underestimate or deny this exchange," he added.