Congress TikTok letter to Google and Apple about removal

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Congress sends letters to the CEOs of Google and Apple that they must be ready to remove TikTok from their U.S. app stores on January 19.

U.S. lawmakers told the CEOs of Apple and Google on Friday that the companies must be ready to remove TikTok from their app stores on January 19. Last week, a U.S. federal appeals court upheld a law requiring China-based parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok in the United States or face a ban.

Representative John Moolenaar, a Republican and chair of the U.S. government committee on China, and the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, separately urged TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to sell the short-form video platform.

“Congress has acted decisively to defend the national security of the United States and protect TikTok’s American users from the Chinese Communist Party. We urge TikTok to immediately executive a qualified divestiture,” wrote the lawmakers.

On Monday, ByteDance and TikTok made an emergency bid to temporarily block the law pending a review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Department of Justice said on Wednesday that should the ban take effect on January 19, it would “not directly prohibit the continued use of TikTok” by users who have already downloaded the app. But prohibitions on providing support through the Google and Apple app stores “will eventually be to render the application unworkable.”

TikTok said that without a court order, the law means the app will disappear from app stores on January 19 and “be unavailable to the half of the country that does not already use the app.” The company warned that ending support services will “cripple the platform in the United States and make it totally unusable.”

“The statute is what the statute is,” said Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who said in a recent interview he hopes ByteDance will sell TikTok, as the law “leaves no wiggle room.” He continued, “The main issue is [ByteDance] is subject to Chinese oversight, Beijing oversight — that’s the problem.”

Both ByteDance and TikTok have noted that President-elect Donald Trump has said he would prevent a TikTok ban in the United States. Trump previously pushed to ban TikTok within the country, but fearing such a move would empower Meta-owned platforms, he has since changed his tune.