The TikTok ban is poised to make the U.S.-China divide even starker
The TikTok ban is poised to make the U.S.-China divide even starker
The TikTok ban looks increasingly like a matter of when, not if. The provision, which passed the House of Representatives over the weekend as part of a larger foreign aid bill, would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app’s U.S. operations within a year or be banned from the country. The bill has advanced to the Senate and could be signed into law as early as this week.
The proposed ban follows years of tension between the U.S. and China over technology, as Wall Street Journal technology reporter Meghan Bobrowsky noted in a recent article. “You sort of have these two parallel internets that are existing in both countries,” said Bobrowsky in an interview with “Marketplace” host Kimberly Adams. “So already in China, Facebook is banned, Instagram is banned. A lot of these social media apps are banned that are pretty popular here.”
Noted Bobrowsky: “If the U.S. were to ban TikTok, that would make this divide start to become even more stark.”
Click the audio button above to hear the full interview.
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