People gather for a press conference about their opposition to a TikTok ban on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on 22 March 2023.People gather for a press conference about their opposition to a TikTok ban on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on 22 March 2023.
The new law gives ByteDance a year to sell TikTok to a US-based company, or the app will face a total ban from American app stores. TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, Michael Beckerman, made it clear in that time, the company will. If the new federal law goes into effect without being blocked, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store will be required to stop offering TikTok for download or face financial penalties.
Still, such concerns have resulted in bans across a number of college campuses, political offices and individual states. TikTok was banned in India in 2020 after a wave of dangerous “challenges” led to the deaths of some users, and the app is not available in China itself.