Despite the fact that Joe Biden signed into law a bill that will ban the Chinese social media app TikTok if its parent company does not sell it, his campaign will continue to use the app in the meantime.
As Fox News reports, campaign officials confirmed on Wednesday that the Biden campaign “will stay on TikTok,” even after Biden signed a massive foreign aid package which included the provision on TikTok. The law requires ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to sell the app within nine months or else the app will be banned from use in the United States.
The law banning TikTok had been in the works on Capitol Hill for some time, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressing national security concerns over TikTok’s close ties to the Chinese government, as well as privacy concerns regarding users’ personal data.
The provision to ban TikTok was included in the broader $95 billion foreign aid bill, which included money for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. A standalone bill on TikTok had stalled in the Senate, so Republicans simply worked the legislation into the overall aid package in order to guarantee its passage. The bill passed both houses with overwhelming support.
Whereas the original TikTok bill gave ByteDance six months to sell the app, the final version gives the company nine months to sell, thus setting the deadline after the November election. If a sale is confirmed to be in the process, the legislation gives the company an extra three months to finalize the deal.
TikTok has refused to capitulate to the new law, repeatedly denying accusations of privacy breaches or being a national security threat.
“At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,” said Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, in a memo sent to all employees on Saturday. “This is the beginning, not the end of this long process.”
Following the passage of the law, TikTok declared the new legislation to be “unconstitutional.”
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday. “We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail.”
“This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans,” the statement continued. “As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired.”