House members are signaling to tech giants Apple and Google that they must be ready to comply with a law that could lead to an effective ban on TikTok in the United States, set to take effect next month.
Letters were dispatched on Friday to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai by Representatives John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who serve on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. The lawmakers emphasized the impending deadline, reminding the tech leaders of their responsibilities as app store operators in light of recent court decisions.
The urgency stems from a ruling last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which upheld the constitutionality of legislation mandating that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, must divest its U.S. operations by January 19, 2025. Should ByteDance fail to comply by this date, Apple and Google would be legally obligated to remove TikTok from their respective app stores, thereby making the app unavailable for new downloads in the U.S. market.
