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Trump Plans to Ban TikTok From the U.S.

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President Trump plans to ban TikTok from the United States, NBC News reports.



Aboard Air Force One on Friday night, Trump reportedly said "As far as TikTok is concerned we're banning them from the United States." He described the action as a "severance" and said that an executive order enforcing the ban could be signed as soon as today. "I have that authority," he said.

In recent weeks, the White House has increasingly raised concerns over the popular short-form video app due to its ownership by ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese owner. Chinese law can compel any domestic company to hand over all collected user data. TikTok tracks user location information and user metadata, and has aroused concerns about privacy and censorship.

TikTok has repeatedly claimed that it is independent, not subject to Chinese government data requests or under Chinese influence, but on Wednesday a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, suggested China views TikTok as a domestic company.

A TikTok spokesperson said that its largest investors come from the U.S. and the platform is a job creator committed to the privacy and safety of its 100 million American users.

"We've hired nearly 1,000 people to our US team this year alone, and are proud to be hiring another 10,000 employees into great paying jobs across the U.S.," the spokesperson said. "Our $1 billion creator fund supports U.S. creators who are building livelihoods from our platform... TikTok U.S. user data is stored in the U.S., with strict controls on employee access."
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It has been rumored that Microsoft is in talks to acquire the app from ByteDance. Though ByteDance is in talks with a number of companies for a possible sale, Microsoft seems to be the leading candidate. Trump said he does not support a deal between ByteDance and Microsoft. ByteDance is reportedly seeking to retain a small stake in TikTok in any deal. Microsoft and TikTok declined to comment to NBC News about the negotiations.

Earlier this month, Larry Kudlow, Trump's top economic adviser, said he had been informed the eventual buyer of TikTok "will be a one hundred percent American company." The American Civil Liberties Union said Trump's plan to ban the app was "a danger to free expression."

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Trump Plans to Ban TikTok From the U.S.
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/01/trump-plans-to-ban-tiktok-from-the-u-s/
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coldwaves

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May 30, 2011
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I think this is not a good move for the industry. Is it legitimate to ban an app based on what it thinks the app could/might do in the future? I would support banning a app if it violates or refuses to obey local laws. US government cannot show any evidence that TikTok violates any US law. This move is purely a political move. To be honest, TikTok is banned because Bytedance is a Chinese company and TikTok is leading in this market. To use national security as the reason is completely BS.
 
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racer1441

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Good. There should be no China owned companies or businesses allowed in the USA. They area controlled and responsible to the CCP who are the true bad actors in this day and age. The communist party ruins the lives of the honest and good people of China, steal intellectual property from US and European companies, and had no problem spreading their Virus through the world. The people of the world and the people of China deserve better than the thuggish communist government that runs a once great country.
 
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coldwaves

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topgunn said:
If Trump were trying to lose the election, I struggle to think of anything he’d actually be doing differently.
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Maybe his team thinks this move is good for his re-election campaign. Showing a tough stance against China could help rally his base. I think there will probably be more confrontational and provocative actions from the US before the November election.
 
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Admiral

Admiral

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coldwaves said:
I think this is not a good move for the industry. Is it legitimate to ban an app based on what it thinks the app could/might do in the future? I would support banning a app if it violates or refuses to obey local laws. US government cannot show any evidence that TikTok violates any US law. This move is purely a political move. To be honest, TikTok is banned because Bytedance is a Chinese company and TikTok is leading in this market. To use national security as the reason is completely BS.
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Yes, it is a good move. The President has broad authority under 50 USC § 1702 to block financial or economic transactions to protect national security. A Chinese app snaffling up Americans' private communications and personal information poses a potential threat to US national security. We need to be taking a very hard look at Chinese investment and operations in the United States; I work in foreign investment in Asia — let me tell you, they certainly take a hard look at our companies in China, and impose a lot of terrible conditions.
 
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coldwaves

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Admiral said:
Yes, it is. The President has broad authority under 50 USC § 1702 to block financial or economic transactions to protect national security.A Chinese app snaffling up Americans' private communications and personal information poses a potential threat to US national security.
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The president certainly has the authority to do it. The key thing is whether it should be done based on what one perceived to happen and not based on what actually happened. That a person may commit a crime in the future does not justify putting that person in jail now.
 
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Abazigal

Abazigal

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Jul 18, 2011
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Is there such a thing as “two wrongs make a right”?

On one hand, I suspect Trump has his crosshairs on Tik-Tok because of its purported role in disrupting his recent Tulsa rally. On the other hand, I do believe that Tik-Tok is of shady origins (mainly because it has a lot of location, social and biometric data on a lot of people around the world, especially the US, and the Chinese government could in theory get their hands on it, assuming they haven’t done so already).

So I do support Tik-Tok being banned, even though I believe Trump is not doing so for national security reasons.

How?
 
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questionmark32

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Sep 23, 2013
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What a joke. Ban TikTok (which I personally don’t care about) for safety and security reasons, but can’t do a national mandate to wear masks for public health and safety reasons. That goes to show you that ‘states rights’ is BS from top to bottom. Shouldn’t ‘states’ be the ones to ban TikTok from their state? You know, like COVID testing and public health and safety protocols?

States rights is a joke and has a racist history
 
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