On March 5, a group of U.S. lawmakers from both political parties presented a bill proposing that China’s ByteDance be given approximately six months to sell off its widely-used short video platform TikTok or else risk being banned in the United States. This action is intended to alleviate national security concerns arising from China’s ByteDance’s ownership of the app.

Although Tiktok has stated before that it remains separate from its Chinese ownership, various reports still continue to raise concerns about ByteDance abiding by China’s cybersecurity laws and providing U.S. user data to the CCP. 

Despite not being explicitly labeled as a bill aimed at banning TikTok, a company spokesperson commented that “this bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it.”. Many others held the same opinion, as this proposed legislation threatens the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and strips 5 million small businesses of a crucial platform for their growth and jobs. Although the ban will affect millions of Americans and small businesses, this will also affect and increase the tensions between the U.S. and China, as the U.S. has increased sanctions against China, specifically in technology. Concerns about China’s access to semiconductors and its alignment with Russia’s actions in Ukraine may increase the chance of a TikTok ban. Additionally, if the U.S. ultimately decides to ban TikTok, then other western regions will most likely follow in their footsteps and do the same. 

As a response to Tiktok’s potential ban, they took this matter into their own hands and issued a “rallying call to U.S. users in the app, with this pop-up alert appearing in-stream, making it easy for users to call their House representative.” Tiktok used this strategy last year, in March, when the White House voted to give the President the power to ban the app. They are hoping to use the same strategy to mobilize their user community and influence the outcome once again.

With each escalation in the U.S.-China relationship, the likelihood of a TikTok ban grows. Even if Congress fails to ban TikTok this time around, the threat to the app’s survival persists. Any further conflicts between the two nations could impact TikTok, potentially leading to its downfall.