US ban on TikTok looms with Biden poised to start 270-day countdown

For TikTok, the clock has started running in its existential fight to avoid a US ban.

Legislation requiring the social media app’s Chinese owners to divest sailed through Congress, capped by Senate passage late Tuesday as part of a larger foreign-aid package. President Joe Biden plans to sign it Wednesday — beginning a 270-day countdown for a sale or a US prohibition of the popular video-sharing platform.

TikTok and Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd. have vowed to do all they can to stop the measure. They’ve argued it infringes the free-speech rights of the app’s 170 million monthly US users and plan to file suits to void the law or at least delay its enforcement.