Current Events > BREAKING: Trump Signs Order That Will Effectively Ban Use Of TikTok In the U.S.

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https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executive-order-that-will-effectively-ban-use-of-tiktok-in-the-u-s

President Trump on Thursday invoked his emergency economic powers to impose broad sanctions against TikTok, a move that steps up pressure on the Chinese-owned app to sell its U.S. assets to an American company.

In the order, which takes effect in 45 days, any transactions between TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, and U.S. citizens will be outlawed for national security reasons.

In practice, experts told NPR the order likely will mean the viral video service could no longer receive advertising from American companies and the app could be removed from Apple and Google's app stores.

For the more than 100 million Americans who have downloaded TikTok, experts say the app may no longer be sent software updates, rendering TikTok unmanageable, and eventually nonfunctional, with time.

"When we talk about sanctions against Russian oligarchs and kleptocrats, well, the sanctions are that no American can do business with them," Stewart Baker, the former general counsel at the National Security Agency, told NPR last month when speculation about the order first began to spread.

Now, that same sanction has been used against TikTok.

In the order, the White House says TikTok captures vast swaths of information from its users, including location data and Internet search history.

TikTok is open about what data it collects, an amount that is on par with what is harvested by apps owned by American tech companies Google, Facebook and Apple.

"While TikTok is being singled out in this executive order, their data collection and sharing practices are fairly standard in the industry," said University of Notre Dame technology professor Kirsten Martin. "In fact, many fitness apps were banned from use in the military for tracking location data, but we did not ban them from all US citizens."
Yet the White House says what makes TikTok distinct is the theoretical possibility of it handing over data to Chinese authorities, as the Trump administration wages an intensifying trade war against China.

"This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage," the executive order reads.

TikTok has downplayed its ties to Beijing, saying data it captures on U.S. users is stored mostly in Virginia. Officials at TikTok also insist the company has never turned over any data to Chinese authorities, despite the county's broad national powers to request such data from private companies.

A federal class-action lawsuit involving dozens of American families claims an independent security review of TikTok revealed that the app is siphoning data, including the facial profiles of American children, and sending it to Chinese servers, though the suit does not provide evidence any information has ever been transferred to the Chinese Communist Party.

Since the Trump administration began turning up the heat on TikTok, software giant Microsoft has confirmed it is among a handful of companies in early talks to acquire the short-form video service.

For Microsoft, a $1.5 trillion company that has focused its business mostly on corporate clients by selling software and cloud computing services, buying TikTok would be its first major foray into a social media platform popular among young users.

Microsoft already owns game console company Xbox, networking site LinkedIn and messaging service Skype.
Officials at Microsoft say it is examining a TikTok acquisition that would potentially buy TikTok's American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand services, but officials close to the deal say the final offer may include operations in even more countries.

Trump's executive order comes on the same day Facebook launched a new product Reels, a video-sharing app that mimics TikTok's core features.

TikTok has accused Facebook of introducing a "copycat" service, arguing the social network is trying to capitalize on the administration's zeal to punish China for its own benefit.

Trump on Thursday also signed an executive order to restrict the business between China-based Tencent Holdings, the owner of WeChat, and U.S. citizens.

More than a billion people in China use WeChat, an all-in-one app used for messaging, social media and making mobile payments. It is a popular tool for chatting and transactions among Chinese citizens living in the U.S., but the Trump administration says the app could have a nefarious use by authorities in Beijing.

"Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users," Trump's separate executive order reads. "In addition, the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives."

On Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to ban TikTok on government-issued devices, as the view that the app could pose a national security threat to the U.S. gains new bipartisan support in Washington.

A spokeswoman for TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment about the executive order.

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Good. TikToxic can burn.

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Good to know what's highest on Cheeto presidents priority list right now. Meanwhile toddler pissing contest continues over the covid relief package and it continues to be delayed. But yeah, let's figure out tiktok first.

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Hell yeah no more stupid meme dances and lip syncing. Take that libs and China

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It's funny to see all the boomers hating on Tiktok simply because it's popular.

TIk Tok Teens Stole My Great Aunts Info And Cloned Her

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I was mailed flower seeds because of tik tok

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That'll teach em for spoiling his Covid 19 Infection Rally!

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MabusIncarnate posted...

Good to know what's highest on Cheeto presidents priority list right now. Meanwhile toddler pissing contest continues over the covid relief package and it continues to be delayed. But yeah, let's figure out tiktok first.

For real.
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Spooking posted...

Time to invest in Vine?

Use Facebook's new "Reels"

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Only took him 4 years to do something right

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fhqwhgads posted...

Only took him 4 years to do something right

I know you mean that, half tongue and cheek.
But you know he's doing it because he has some weird hate boner for China and Asians.

Personally I think it's rooted in to when Japan was seen as buying up America in the 80's...and a lot of time in NYC, which is where he was then.
He probably thinks China is Japan at this point.
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SiO4 posted...

I know you mean that, half tongue and cheek.
But you know he's doing it because he has some weird hate boner for China and Asians.

Personally I think it's rooted in to when Japan was seen as buying up America in the 80's...and a lot of time in NYC, which is where he was then.
He probably thinks China is Japan at this point.

Its because he is a man child that got his rally spammed by TikTok users that inflated his numbers and made him look bad when the people didnt actually show up.

Its petty revenge.

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I was reading about how TikTok sends way more personal data than the app actually requires, intentionally obfuscates the API to make it harder to track, uses unsecured HTTP, and leaks users primary and secondary email addresses through REST API calls. This is probably a good thing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news_but_tbh_if_you_have_tiktiok_just_get/fmuko1m/

tl;dr; I'm a nerd who figures out how apps work for a job. Calling it an advertising platform is an understatement. TikTok is essentially malware that is targeting children. Don't use TikTok. Don't let your friends and family use it.

and Tencent

so no more League of Legends, Pubg, Epic Games, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty,

and Reddit

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Chinese company endlessly mines data to exploit people = bad

American companies do the same thing = a-ok
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This is all very dumb and not a good thing.
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ToadallyAwesome posted...

Its because he is a man child that got his rally spammed by TikTok users that inflated his numbers and made him look bad when the people didnt actually show up.

Its petty revenge.

Oh god I forgot about that.

But either way, he's got something against Asians.
And I guarantee it goes back to the 80's.
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Tyrant.

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Good luck

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Mezcla posted...

and Tencent

so no more League of Legends, Pubg, Epic Games, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty,

and Reddit

Oh wow, will gamers rise up?

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Hornezz posted...

Oh wow, will gamers rise up?

well luckily they wont have to

https://twitter.com/samaugustdean/status/1291576813685108736

Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order! White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat

weird.

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Mezcla posted...

and Tencent

so no more League of Legends, Pubg, Epic Games, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty,

and Reddit

Thought it was just WeChat?

EDIT: I looked and yeah, it's just WeChat.

Party of freedom

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Dark_SilverX posted...

Good. TikToxic can burn.

How is it good that the US Government is trying to limit what program and application you choose to install on your phone? We want to be more like China?

Muh freedom!!!!

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CruelBuffalo posted...

How is it good that the US Government is trying to limit what program and application you choose to install on your phone? We want to be more like China?

If he gets a second term I guarantee we will be more like China in the bad way.

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Does tik tok actaully do something unique that the 3 billion other social sharing things online don't, or is this just complaining about going back to an old one?

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This isnt about security its because TikTok was used to make his rally a failure

fuck the constitution m i rite?

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lightwarrior78 posted...

Does tik tok actaully do something unique that the 3 billion other social sharing things online don't, or is this just complaining about going back to an old one?

Tik Tok gives your data to the Chinese instead of the Americans.

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lightwarrior78 posted...

Does tik tok actaully do something unique that the 3 billion other social sharing things online don't, or is this just complaining about going back to an old one?

It is substantially worse then most other apps like that in terms of spyware. Granted, Trump is doing this because of a vendetta, but I hope his using spyware as justification puts some fear into app developers when it comes to putting spyware into their apps. Spyware is a problem and people shouldn't be cool with it. The argument of "other apps do it so TikTok should be able to too" is dumb. It's not that TikTok should get away with it too, it's that *all* of those apps should be banned.

Swifter decision making is being made with a social media app than it is in regards to the financial security of millions of American people.

And yet close to half the country still believes that this administration has been anything but a total shitshow.

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How are they getting away with it you choose to download it on your phone

ultimate reaver posted...

TIk Tok Teens Stole My Great Aunts Info And Cloned Her

Is she hot

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CruelBuffalo posted...

How are they getting away with it you choose to download it on your phone

Annihilated posted...

I was reading about how TikTok sends way more personal data than the app actually requires, intentionally obfuscates the API to make it harder to track, uses unsecured HTTP, and leaks users primary and secondary email addresses through REST API calls. This is probably a good thing.

Whether or not it's actually bannable, consumer protection and national security are both considerations that disregard whether someone intentionally downloads an app.

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when is trump going to ban other social media apps developed closer to home that infringe on the privacy of their users

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TheMikh posted...

when is trump going to ban other social media apps developed closer to home that infringe on the privacy of their users

Never because Americans = good and foreigners = bad.

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Took way too long for this to happen. I've never understood how we could just let China ban many of our major tech products while giving their companies a free pass.

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Ban pokemon unite too please

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On Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to ban TikTok on government-issued devices, as the view that the app could pose a national security threat to the U.S. gains new bipartisan support in Washington.

So after reading through all of that mess of an article the last paragraph gets to the point. So no big deal?


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MabusIncarnate posted...

I was mailed flower seeds because of tik tok

What if this is true. Then they send out a thing that says "We sent seeds to people who looked at way too many dancing highschoolers " after everyone that got them told their friends that they received them

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so trump is still butthurt about that rally?

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McgeesAlice808 posted...

So just another BUT CHINA attempt by Trump in order to steer away from his numerous incompetencies? Although this one seems to be working better than his others. I guess covid really increased the sinophobia.

Pissing off the Millenial userbase at the same time Covid deaths surged past 160,000. Much like everything else he has done in life, he sucks at deflecting.

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SiO4 posted...

I know you mean that, half tongue and cheek.
But you know he's doing it because he has some weird hate boner for China and Asians.

Personally I think it's rooted in to when Japan was seen as buying up America in the 80's...and a lot of time in NYC, which is where he was then.
He probably thinks China is Japan at this point.

I really hope you keep your day job, and never have to think.

I love how everyone ignores it was actually Apple's fault due to a vulnerability on their side. TikTok is the only app we know was using that vulnerability but there probably are/were more of them that did it.

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Trump's executive order comes on the same day Facebook launched a new product Reels, a video-sharing app that mimics TikTok's core features.

There it is.

I knew Zucker was an orange popsicle fetishist, but I didn't think he *actually* blew Trump. Well, there's your "smoking gun" so to speak.
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Good, fuck China. They don't allow any american tech company apps on their phones. And unlike China the US can't just snap their fingers and order our tech companies to hand over the private information of their users.

Just give them a taste of their own medicine and let an american company blatantly rip off their brand.

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