TikTok gets thumbs up in China for ‘tough stance’ against US lawmakers pushing new effort to ban the ByteDance app

ByteDance, the Chinese tech unicorn that is again facing a US ban of its flagship TikTok app unless it divests, has earned a “thumbs up” at home after rallying its young users against the legislation in an effort mirroring some of the more aggressive tactics from American platforms several years ago.

The response is in contrast to a previous effort from former US president Donald Trump to ban TikTok in 2020, when ByteDance was perceived as “kneeling down” too fast with an offer to sell its US operations to Oracle.

That same year, the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology introduced regulations that would likely prevent ByteDance from exporting its TikTok algorithms, the secret sauce of its success. That leaves the Chinese firm with little recourse beyond bringing the fight to Washington, which it did last week with in-app alerts to American users telling them to “speak up” against the new US legislation. A flood of calls to representatives angered lawmakers before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce advanced the bill in a 50-0 vote.

TikTok, a subsidiary of ByteDance, struck out on X, formerly Twitter, by rhetorically asking, “Why are Members of Congress complaining about hearing from their constituents? Respectfully, isn’t that their job?” ByteDance, however, has largely remained quiet on the matter except to deny a Wall Street Journal report that Zhang Yiming, who founded the company in Beijing in 2012, had been in touch with former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick about a TikTok acquisition.