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The TikTok logo: 170 million users in the USA

Photo: Loic Venance / AFP

TikTok is taking drastic action in the USA: US users are warned about a ban on the app and can call the representatives from their respective electoral district to protest against it at the touch of a button.

Since then, many phones have stopped working.

The tech website "The Information" reported that a representative's office was so flooded with calls that employees had no choice but to switch off the phones.

Background to the action: A bill is being drafted in the US House of Representatives that would give TikTok owner ByteDance almost six months to relinquish control of the popular app.

Otherwise, TikTok is threatened with banishment from the app stores in the USA.

The service claims to have 170 million users in the USA.

TikTok is the only successful online platform in the West that does not come from the USA.

There are concerns, especially in the USA, but also in Europe, that the app could be misused by Chinese authorities to collect information about users.

Governments of several countries and the EU Commission banned the use of TikTok on work cell phones.

TikTok always rejects concerns and emphasizes that it does not see itself as a subsidiary of a Chinese company.

ByteDance is 60 percent owned by Western investors.

The company headquarters are on the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.

Critics counter that the Chinese founders, with a share of 20 percent, maintained control thanks to higher voting rights and that ByteDance has a large headquarters in Beijing.

US lawmakers often directly link TikTok to the Chinese Communist Party.

During his term as US President, Donald Trump tried to force a sale of TikTok's US business to American investors with threats of a ban.

But the plan failed because US courts suspected the plans for a TikTok ban to violate the freedom of speech enshrined in the US Constitution.

A law in the state of Montana that was supposed to ban TikTok from the app stores there is also on hold.

The website “Punchbowl News” recently reported that US President Joe Biden’s White House supports the new legislative initiative.

Biden's Democrats are divided on TikTok: The president wants to take a tough position on China but needs young people's votes for re-election in November.

vet/dpa