US Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts drafted a bill seeking to legally lift the ban on TikTok. In 2024, the U.S. Congress passed the so-called "Sell or Ban" bill and it was signed into law by then-President Biden. The law requires ByteDance to sell TikTok's US business, otherwise TikTok will be banned in the United States.However, U.S. President Trump has given TikTok three grace periods since taking office, and asked Apple and Google to continue to provide TikTok downloads in the app store.
Markey's TikTok Transparency and Data Security Act
Now, Senator Markey is calling for finding a new way to avoid a TikTok ban without breaking the law. According to the "TikTok Transparency and Data Security Act" drafted by Markey, he called for TikTok to be allowed to continue to operate in the United States, as long as TikTok maintains transparency in content moderation and ensures that U.S. user data does not flow to other countries.
This bill is equivalent to establishing an "exemption clause" for the TikTok ban and puts forward two core requirements: algorithm transparency requirements and data access restrictions.
The algorithm transparency requirements include four details: TikTok must open researchers’ data access rights, decentralize public data access, research “disclaimer protection” and transparency reporting. Among the data access restriction requirements, TikTok must store the personal information of U.S. users on physical servers located in the United States and must not transmit this information to foreign hostile countries.