Congress tells China: sell TikTok or we’ll ban it
Only America’s courts can save the video app now
Editor’s note (April 24th): This story was updated after Joe Biden signed the bill into law.
Joe Biden joined TikTok only two months ago, with a short video entitled “lol hey guys”. On April 24th America’s president approved a bill that could ban the popular app. The previous day, the Senate had passed a measure to crack down on “foreign adversary controlled applications”, including TikTok, as part of a package of legislation allocating military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Mr Biden wasted no time signing it into law, no matter the feelings of his 300,000 followers, or TikTok’s 170m American users.
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This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "One minute to midnight"
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