Inside America’s stand against TikTok

Earlier this month, the video app TikTok started sending urgent push notifications to its 170 million American users. ‘Congress is planning a total ban of TikTok,’ it said. ‘Speak up now.’ The company called on TikTokers to defend their ‘constitutional right to free expression’ and provided a handy link so that ‘businesses, creators and artists’ could all contact their representatives directly and urge them to vote down the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

An army of angsty teens was activated but the effort backfired. Many kids got carried away, screaming out death and rape threats, and that underlined the point which elected officials behind the bill wanted to make: that TikTok, ultimately controlled as it is by the Communist party of China, is brainwashing children and dangerously out of control.

Ten days ago, the act, which would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell its US entity within six months, sailed through the House by a margin of 352-65.