TikTok ban deadline: ‘In no way should it go dark on Sunday,’ says Democratic senator

Edward Markey urges President Joe Biden to give TikTok more time

The TikTok logo on a smartphone. Bloomberg

Senator Edward Markey on Thursday said that Democrats in the chamber are continuing to push to extend the deadline that could lead to TikTok being banned in the US by the weekend.

“TikTok must not go dark on Sunday,” he said, adding that he, along with senators Cory Booker and Chris Van Hollen, had sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to use an article in the TikTok bill’s provision that could extend the deadline of January 19 by 90 days.

"This isn't just cat videos," Mr Markey said, laughing. "It's community, it's small businesses, it's creators, it's democracy, it's people talking to each other, and again, it's 65 per cent of all adults in the country."

Mr Markey, who opposed the bill that sought to force parent company ByteDance to divest from TikTok back in April, said the legislation had been forced into a humanitarian bill, which limited honest discussion on it at the time.

"That's why we need a time-out,” he said. "We need hearings. We need experts. We need to know what we're talking about."

Mr Markey also said that he recently became aware of a letter from senior intelligence officials that went against the notion that TikTok had manipulated data and the platform’s algorithm for political reasons, an argument that made its way to recent hearings on the issue at the US Supreme Court.

“It’s very telling that many of my colleagues aren’t aware of this,” he said.

Mr Booker, who has more than 472,000 followers on TikTok, said that forcing the platform to go dark on Sunday is not the appropriate solution.

“We need to make sure we're creating space for us to come together and save this platform in a way that comports with legitimate concerns … and preserve a platform that, as Senator Markey has said, is so profoundly important in the lives of so many Americans,” he said, referring to content creators and small businesses that have bolstered their economic bottom line because of TikTok.

Before the news conference, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer echoed those sentiments.

“We’re not against TikTok, we’re against a Chinese company in cahoots with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] owning TikTok,” Mr Schumer posted on X. “Senate Democrats tried to pass a bill to extend the deadline, Republicans blocked it.”

In a bipartisan vote in April, Congress passed and Mr Biden later signed a bill that set a deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok to a US entity by January 19 or risk being banned in the country.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard a legal argument from TikTok claiming that its First Amendment rights are being violated. It is unclear what the justices will decide but several seemed sceptical about the company's argument.

Mr Markey and Mr Booker said that if Mr Biden does not exercise his authority to extend the TikTok deadline, they hope that president-elect Donald Trump will after being sworn in on Monday.

Media reports have reported that TikTok’s chief executive Shou Zi Chew plans to attend Mr Trump’s inauguration in some capacity, along with the heads of other technology companies.

"I think it's probably helpful that the … chief executive of TikTok is going to be in town because he personifies, he puts the human face on what the impact is going to be on 170 million Americans,” said Mr Markey.

He said that “what they’re doing is no different from what Facebook is doing", referring to criticism about data collection.

At the Leap technology conference in Riyadh, TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew spoke of the platform's growing popularity amid increased scrutiny from regulators. Cody Combs / The National

At the heart of the deadline is an argument that goes back to 2020, when Mr Trump, who was president at the time, issued an executive order emphasising user data concerns related to TikTok because its parent company was based in China.

TikTok and ByteDance have repeatedly dismissed those concerns and denied that any US user data was in danger of being compromised.

The company moved much of its user data to US-based servers run by Oracle, but ultimately critics and elected officials have pointed out that because ByteDance is subject to the laws of China, there is still a national security risk.