China's Defense of TikTok Hit With X Community Note

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has flagged a Chinese government post for saying the House of Representatives vote on Wednesday to separate TikTok from its Chinese owner ByteDance is "on the wrong side of fair competition."

"TikTok is banned in the People's Republic of China," the X community note read. The Elon Musk-owned company says community notes "aim to create a better-informed world by empowering people on X to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading posts."

The debate surrounding the short video-sharing platform is rooted in national security concerns, as Chinese companies are required by law to hand over data to their government upon request. The current legislation would force ByteDance to sell TikTok within six months to avoid a ban. Critics say the move threatens free speech and the livelihoods of thousands of employees and influencers.

"The TikTok bill passed by the US House of Representatives puts the US on the wrong side of the principles of fair competition and international trade rules," the Chinese government post read, quoting a statement from ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin Thursday.

TikTok did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.

While TikTok hasn't technically been banned in China, it is inaccessible without a virtual private network (VPN). ByteDance's China-specific version of the platform, Douyin, reigns supreme in the country.

China has also blocked access to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Google services. X itself is also banned—though Chinese diplomats use the microblogging app to deliver Beijing's messaging to the wider world.

U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns said Friday: "I find it supremely ironic because [Chinese] government officials here are using the X platform to criticize the United States. They don't give their own citizens the right to use [blocked U.S. social media]."

"We welcome foreign platforms and services of various kinds to the Chinese market on the premise that they observe China's laws and regulations," Liu Pengyu spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the U.S.," told Newsweek. "This is completely different from the U.S. way of handling TikTok, which is clearly a bullying act and robbers' logic."

TikTok is China's most successful tech export, boasting nearly 2 billion users worldwide, including some 150 million active users in the U.S.

The TikTok bill was approved in the lower chamber Wednesday by a vote of 352-65. Now all eyes are on the Senate. President Joe Biden has said he'd sign the bill if it passed both houses of Congress.

The U.S. federal government and 39 states have already restricted TikTok on government-issued devices to some degree.