Leaders | Time’s up

Time for TikTok to cut its ties to China

To stay on Western screens, the video app needs new owners

The icon of the TikTok app, tied up and tagged with a dollar sign.
Illustration: Matt Chase

Editor’s note (March 13th 2024): This piece has been updated.

TikTok’s videos keep its users up late into the evening. Now the app’s links to China are causing politicians to lose sleep, too. On March 13th America’s House of Representatives passed a bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app to an owner of another nationality, or else face a ban in America. If the Senate follows suit, the world’s most downloaded app, by one measure, may start disappearing from screens.

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Time’s up"

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