The drama surrounding TikTok’s forced divestment from Chinese parent company ByteDance continues with an eleventh hour bill that will give the company more time to find a deal. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts introduced the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act on Monday, which if passed would give the company 270 more days to divest or be forced to shut down in the US The Verge reported in the news.

Under the law released by President Biden in April of this year, TikTok was given a deadline of January 19 to find a new American owner. The company has previously insisted it has no interest in splitting from parent company ByteDance, although a new report suggests the Chinese government is considering a deal with sell TikTok to Elon Muskwhich is somehow worse than banning it. After spending $250 million to support Trump’s presidential run, it looks like Musk will get a big return on his investment. TikTok quickly denied the report.

TikTok meanwhile continues to fight for its survival through the courts, with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments about the initial law on Friday. While TikTok — along with most of its creators — argued that the ban was a violation of the First Amendment, the judges. seems doubtful. The government argues that such a ban is necessary for national security and is not a violation of free speech rights because it seeks to regulate a service, not the content produced by that service.

In 2020, gay hookup app Grindr was forced to divest from its Chinese parent company after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) determined that data could be used inappropriately to blackmail or intimidate people. American users. There is no evidence that TikTok’s data is being used improperly or that the company is trying to sway users’ views on any topic, another of the reasons the company rejected the ban. TikTok maintains that the Chinese government has no control over its operations, although the allegation that the Chinese government itself is considering a deal for TikTok undermines that thinking.

“TikTok has its problems,” said Sen. Markey on Monday, adding “a ban on TikTok would impose serious consequences on the millions of Americans who rely on the app for social connections and their economic livelihood. We cannot allow that to happen.” TikTok has more than 170 million monthly users in the United States.

In a case of strange bedfellows, President-elect Trump completely reversed himself from his first term when he tried to shut down TikTok. He has created an account on the app that has gained more than 14 million followers and now wants to stop the ban on going to the place, at least until he has a chance to find a resolution on his own. Trump warns against banning TikTok, saying it will only make Meta more powerful, although he on good terms with CEO Mark Zuckerberg these days.

At the same time, TikTok users are hedging their bets by putting another Chinese short-form video app, RedNotewhich makes the whole idea of ​​banning TikTok to protect against Chinese influence seem futile. People love TikTok and all its short forms, like a pig in a trough.