Key takeaways:
- The US government has issued an ultimatum to the Chinese owners of the popular video-sharing app TikTok, demanding they sell their stake in the platform or face a US ban.
- Internal data from TikTok suggests that the number of monthly active users in the U.S. has jumped by 50% in the nearly three years that Washington has grappled with how to rein it in.
- The Biden administration is following in the footsteps of the Trump administration, which threatened to ban TikTok in the United States if it didn’t divest from its Chinese owners.
The popular video-sharing app TikTok is facing a potential ban in the United States after the US government issued an ultimatum to the app’s Chinese owners. The ultimatum comes as TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew prepares to testify before Congress on Thursday, and as the app’s internal data suggests it is far more enmeshed in Americans’ daily lives than anyone realizes.
TikTok acknowledged to CNN this week that the federal government is demanding the app’s Chinese owners sell their stake in the social media platform, or risk facing a US ban of the app. The directive comes from the multiagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), following years of negotiations between TikTok and the government body.
The ultimatum from the US government represents an apparent escalation in pressure from Washington as more Americans use the app. Internal data from TikTok suggests that the number of monthly active users in the U.S. has jumped by 50% in the nearly three years that Washington has grappled with how to rein it in. Currently, TikTok says about 100 million people in the U.S. are regular users of the app.
The Biden administration is now following in the footsteps of the Trump administration, which threatened to ban TikTok in the United States if it didn’t divest from its Chinese owners. It remains to be seen how the US government will respond to the new internal data from TikTok and the testimony of its CEO.
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