Summary
The House of Representatives voted in March to either ban the app or force its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell it. The Senate has not yet taken up this bill, but it is widely expected to. TikTok has not shared U.S. personal information with the Chinese government and would not do so in the future if asked. But lawmakers are raising concerns there are risks this could happen in thefuture. In the short term, there's no direct substitute for what TikTok offers. In the long term, a TikTok ban will likely raise concerns about how other e-commerce companies use it. There have been talks about a wealthy individual or a corporation potentially buying ByteDance's ownership of the company. TikTok is one of the most valuable companies in the United States. If TikTok were to be sold, at least in the short term, it would probably benefit Meta and Snapchat. It's just not clear whether this TikTok ban is a one-time initiative, or if it's a signal of something larger. If we do see the U.S. government imposing stronger boundaries on how information is shared, it could have a big impact on the rest of the world.