TikTok breaks silence over US ban attempts, unravels plans

A popular video-sharing application TikTok said Wednesday that it would fight a legal battle after a law that was signed by President Joe Biden passed by the US Senate on Tuesday, according to the Byte-Dance-owned company’s statement.

Joe Biden signed Wednesday four bills in which the ban on TikTok was also included if the social media application did not sell its stakes within a nine-month window or face a complete ban in the US.

The Senate voted 79-18 to approve the package while the House of Representatives passed the package Saturday in a 360-58 bipartisan vote.

The US maintains that TikTok has data of millions of its citizens which could be compromised by the Chinese authorities. Eventually, they could meddle in the US internal affairs and influence on democratic choices of its people.

The Beijing-based platform consistently denied the claims.

In a statement, TikTok said: "We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail."

"The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep US data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation," it noted, adding that "this ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans".

The bill was part of the package of four bills that included military assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Info-Pacific allies amounting cumulatively to $95 billion.

TikTok maintained that its parent company "is not an agent of China or any other country".

Bye-Dance also rejects being a Chinese firm saying its 60% of its stakes are owned by global investors.