Austin, Texas — 

Vice President Kamala Harris of the United States stated that the Biden government does not plan to prohibit TikTok, a well-liked short video app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

During an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” program, Harris stated on Sunday that the intention or objective of the conversation was not to enforce a ban.

Last week, the White House urged the Senate to quickly move forward with a bill that would require ByteDance to sell TikTok within six months due to worries about privacy and national security threats. Failure to comply would result in a ban.

There is concern among U.S. officials and lawmakers about the potential for the Chinese government to obtain personal data of American consumers on the platform. This information could potentially be used to promote a pro-Beijing agenda.

Despite reports suggesting that ByteDance may be at risk of providing private data to the Chinese government, the company has denied any intention of doing so.

The House passed the bill on March 13 with significant bipartisan backing, but there has been no progress on it in the Senate.

China has firmly opposed any forced sale of TikTok.

According to The Associated Press, TikTok is encouraging its American users to contact their representatives and express opposition to the bill. This has resulted in numerous calls being made to several senators, some of which have included death threats.

Although some have concerns about security and privacy, numerous Americans remain enthusiastic about the app.

An American social media influencer, who cannot reveal her real name due to her contract with a talent agency, has been on TikTok since 2021 and saw the popularity of her hairdressing videos explode to hundreds of thousands of views.

She was unaware that TikTok was owned by a Chinese company until receiving a notification advising her to contact her congressional representative. It was only after reading news reports that she became aware of this fact.

“I have concerns about my ability to access TikTok,” she expressed to VOA. “The communities on TikTok are fantastic. Watching videos makes you feel like you’re part of a huge community. With numerous comments, you can connect with a multitude of individuals.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, TikTok currently has approximately 170 million users in the United States; however, its growth among young people experienced a setback last year. Data from analytics company Data.ai revealed a decrease of almost 9% in the average monthly users aged 18 to 24 from 2022 to 2023. The Journal also mentioned that this drop is likely due to young people’s busy schedules following the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a significant increase in TikTok users, rather than concerns about the Chinese government’s potential access to user data.

During the pandemic, Greg Bastin, a cereal maker based in Texas, began utilizing TikTok.

He explained to VOA that he intends to utilize TikTok influencers to promote his merchandise, recognizing its potential to boost sales and produce engaging content at a reasonable cost.

However, Bastin acknowledges that the potential security and privacy issues prevent him from sharing personal content on TikTok.

He stated that surrendering fundamental data rights is the cost of entry for utilizing social media platforms nowadays.

According to a recent article by the Financial Times, TikTok had an impressive revenue of $16 billion in the U.S. last year. It is projected that ByteDance may surpass Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in worldwide sales in the near future. However, the majority of ByteDance’s earnings are from China.

According to James Lewis, the senior vice president of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, potential problems with TikTok may lead to benefits for other short video platforms, such as Instagram. However, he believes that the majority of American TikTok users will not readily switch to another platform.

The reason people use TikTok is not easily changed, according to the speaker. They believe it is unrealistic to expect everyone to move to a different platform if TikTok is shut down.

Since 2022, numerous governments and institutions, such as those in Australia, Britain, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the United States, have prohibited the use of TikTok on devices belonging to employees and contractors due to concerns about security.

In 2020, India prohibited the use of TikTok and various other Chinese apps following a violent conflict at their border involving Chinese soldiers.

In 2020, the then-United States President Donald Trump implemented a presidential directive that prohibited the use of TikTok and the Chinese messaging platform WeChat in the country. Additionally, ByteDance was instructed to either sell off TikTok or discontinue its operations.

The movement was halted by the court’s orders, and President Joe Biden annulled and substituted the order with a new inquiry.

The Biden administration is backing the legislation to require TikTok to be sold or be banned. Meanwhile, Trump has recently seemed to retract his plan to ban the app.

During a call-in interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” the ex-president stated that he believed TikTok remained a danger to national security. However, he argued that prohibiting its use would benefit Facebook, a platform he has consistently criticized since his unsuccessful re-election bid in 2020.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

Source: voanews.com