Is one of your favorite apps getting banned within the next six months? Lawmakers have approved a bill that could possibly only give the owner Zhang Yiming of TikTok up to six months to sell the app. If the app cannot sell, it will be prohibited from US “internet hosting services” and even the app store.  

The US government has been trying to crack down on the social media platform TikTok for some time now. Recently, they have renewed their efforts to try and shut it down due to national security concerns with the platform’s parent company Bytedance. Through TikTok there is an excessive amount of data collected from each user like their location. With the data collection congress is afraid that, by collecting such information, it could be used to spy on the US through the app.  

On April 20, 2024, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Application Act passed a vote in the house and was later signed into law by President Biden. The bill was attached to the Ukraine and Israel foreign aid package. According to CNN, the bill was passed with 360 affirmative votes and only 58 dissenting votes. The bill was later modified to be part of a larger foreign aid package.  

While this law would ban TikTok in the US app stores, trying to remove the app from user’s phones would prove to be a lot more difficult. Other apps, such as VPN (virtual private networking), could make it possible for users in the US to continue using TikTok by making it seem as though the user is connected to the internet in another country. So far, nothing has really been mentioned on how this workaround would be taken care of.  

What alternative options are there to take TikTok’s place? While it might seem like nothing could take its place, there are several other apps you might like just as much.  Examples being Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and X (Twitter). Each of these apps somewhat mimic the features that TikTok has.