The lower house of the US Congress has passed a bill that requires the Chinese concern ByteDance to sell the social network TikTok within a year to avoid its ban in the US. The company intends to challenge the requirement.

The US House of Representatives on Saturday, April 20, passed a bill that would ban the social network TikTok in the US if its owner, the Chinese concern ByteDance, does not sell it to another owner. The document states that the company must do this within nine months, but the US president can extend this period for another three months by his decision. This bill was adopted by the lower house of Congress as part of a large package that also includes $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, $26 billion to Israel, and $8 billion to Taiwan, as well as a bill to confiscate Russian assets in favor of Kyiv. Observers have little doubt that the entire package will quickly be approved by the Senate.

Anastasia Chupina