President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok Earlier this week, unless the China-based app is acquired by a US company. On Thursday, he enshrined the threat in an executive order, calling the widespread use of Chinese apps a "national emergency".
"The proliferation of mobile applications in the US, developed by and owned by companies in the People's Republic of China, continues to threaten US national security, foreign policy and the economy," the regulation said. "Right now, action needs to be taken to address the threat posed by a mobile application, particularly TikTok."
Hours after the Senate unanimously voted to ban ByteDance's TikTok from all government devices, the ordinance states that "any transaction by anyone" with ByteDance or its subsidiaries will be banned within 45 days. This would likely mean Apple and Google will no longer be able to list the app in their respective app stores, much like they did with Prohibition against US companies dealing with Huawei.
It was one of two executive orders issued against Chinese tech companies on Thursday. Trump followed up the TikTok ban with a similar arrangement for WeChat, a messaging app owned by Chinese giant TenCent. As with TikTok, the ban will go into effect in 45 days. The ban applies exclusively to WeChat, an Official told the Los Angeles Times. However, if it were extended to TenCent, the ban would have massive ramifications for the gaming industry. TenCent owns Riot Games, developer of League of Legends. TenCent is also a major stakeholder in Fortnite maker Epic Games.
The implementation regulation, which lists the threat emanating from TikTok, specifically prohibits transactions with ByteDance, not with TikTok. This presumably opens up the possibility that TikTok will continue to operate under a US company like Microsoft, which has already been talking about buying part or all of TikTok.
The US government's concern is based on the data TikTok and WeChat collect on their US users, as well as the perceived inability of Chinese companies such as ByteDance and TenCent to deny requests from the ruling Chinese Communist Party for access to that data. A law from 2017 is often cited by critics of China, according to which Chinese companies and citizens are obliged to comply with all national security issues.
"TikTok automatically collects large amounts of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories," the order said. "This data collection threatens to give the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information. China may be able to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, create dossiers of personal information for extortion, and conduct corporate espionage."
The Executive Ordinance also cites reports that TikTok is censoring content in accordance with the CCP's guidelines, such as: B. Contributions to Tiananmen Square massacre and treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang as causes for concern. Trump's order from WeChat cited concerns that the app, which had nearly 900 million Chinese users in 2016, could be used to spy on Chinese nationalists visiting or immigrating to the US.
The US is the second country to have passed laws against TikTok in the past few months. India has blocked the appalong with over 50 other China-made apps and games in June. India said it banned the apps for national security reasons following skirmishes between Chinese and Indian troops over disputed territory north of India and south of China in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Australia was also considering banning the app, but its prime minister said Wednesday there was "no reason" to restrict the app "at this point".
Tick tack blown up the order of the executive in a blunt blog post accusing the administration of acting badly. The company also suggested that legal action be taken to challenge the order.
"For nearly a year now, we've been working in good faith with the US government to find a constructive solution to the concerns raised," TikTok's blog post said. "What we found instead was that the administration was disregarding the facts, dictating the terms of an agreement without going through normal legal processes, and trying to get involved in negotiations between private companies."
The company has previously denied claims that it is partnering with the Chinese government on espionage. "Our success comes with responsibility and accountability," CEO Kevin Mayer wrote in a blog post last week. "The entire industry was rightly scrutinized, but given the company's Chinese origins, we've been scrutinized even further."
