TikTok to challenge US ban Bill after Biden signs it into law

Chinese tech firm ByteDance will have to divest app over next nine months to a year

- 

US President Joe Biden on April 24 signed a Bill that would ban TikTok in the United States if its owner, Chinese tech firm Byte Dance, fails to divest the popular short-video app over the next nine months to a year.

The social media platform, which is particularly popular with left-leaning young Americans, said it would challenge the move in court.

"Rest assured we aren't going anywhere," TikTok chief executive Chew Shou Zi said in a video posted moments after Mr Biden signed the Bill into law.

"The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again." On April 23, the US Senate voted by a wide margin in favour of the TikTok divestment-or-ban Bill, driven by widespread worries among US lawmakers that China could access Americans' data or surveil them with the app.

The Bill was earlier passed by the US House of Representatives on April 20.

"For years, we've allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control one of the most popular apps in America. That was dangerously short-sighted," said Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee.

Asked about the Senate's vote, the Chinese Foreign Ministry referred on April 24 to comments the ministry made in March when the House of Representatives passed a similar Bill.