President Biden Signs Bill 'Banning' TikTok Into Law

Today President Biden has signed H.R. 8038 into law, a foreign aid package that provides assistance for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, but also includes a provision that will force ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok.

Referred to as the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act", this section of H.R. 8038 aims to block any foreign adversary controlled application, not just TikTok. It was passed by the House on April 20, 2024 and by the Senate yesterday (April 23, 2024).

Here's a look at the actual legislation...


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SEC. 2. PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.
(a) In General.—

(1) PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.—It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following:

(A) Providing services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application.

(B) Providing internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of such foreign adversary controlled application for users within the land or maritime borders of the United States.


(2) APPLICABILITY.—Subject to paragraph (3), this subsection shall apply—

(A) in the case of an application that satisfies the definition of a foreign adversary controlled application pursuant to subsection (g)(3)(A), beginning on the date that is 270 days after the date of the enactment of this Act; and

(B) in the case of an application that satisfies the definition of a foreign adversary controlled application pursuant to subsection (g)(3)(B), beginning on the date that is 270 days after the date of the relevant determination of the President under such subsection.

(3) EXTENSION.—With respect to a foreign adversary controlled application, the President may grant a 1-time extension of not more than 90 days with respect to the date on which this subsection would otherwise apply to such application pursuant to paragraph (2), if the President certifies to Congress that—

(A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application;

(B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such application; and

(C) there are in place the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension.
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ByteDance now has 270 days to divest itself of TikTok, but President Biden can grant a 90 day extension if certain conditions are met. If ByteDance does not divest itself of TikTok, U.S. based app stores and Internet infrastructure providers would be prohibted from helping TikTok continue operations.

It's very likely that ByteDance will file legal challenges to this legislation, but it's unclear how effective those efforts will be.

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