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The United States Department of Commerce announced on Friday (18) that it will prohibit, as of this Sunday (20), the download of TikTok and WeChat applications in the country. The Donald Trump administration alleges threats to national security.
It is not yet clear whether those who have the apps installed will be able to use them normally. Currently, TikTok has around 100 million users in the US and WeChat has 19 million.
The US government statement says that as of Sunday “any provision of Internet hosting that allows the operation or optimization of the application in the United States will be prohibited”.
Restrictions on downloads and updates through app stores are also cited.
“The Communist Party of China has shown that it has the means and the intention to use these applications to threaten the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States,” the US department said in a statement.
The statement also says that while the threats in the two apps are different, they have similarities that create “unacceptable risks” to national security.
“Each collects a wide range of user data, including network activity, location data, and browsing and research history. Each is an active participant in China’s civil-military merger and is subject to the mandatory cooperation with the CCP’s intelligence services, “the statement said.
In August, Trump issued an executive order prohibiting “any transaction made by any person, or in relation to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” with ByteDance, the app’s developer.
The US president threatened to ban the application if it was not sold to a US company in mid-September.
This week, TikTok and Oracle announced that they have closed a “technology partnership” for the popular video app, with around 800 million active users worldwide, to continue in the United States.
The proposal aims to make TikTok Global a US-based company.
The deal needs approval
The agreement, however, still awaits the American sieve.
China will also need to approve ByteDance’s proposed deal with Oracle for its TikTok app, the Chinese company said.
The information indicates that your offer to avoid a ban in the United States may be more difficult.
TikTok: the Chinese application that has gained millions of users
TikTok is an application developed by the Chinese company ByteDance, known for its short videos popular with teenagers.
It is the first social network to emerge in China to gain popularity in markets such as the United States, Europe and Brazil.
TikTok is free, a kind of short version of YouTube. Users can post videos of up to a minute and choose from a huge database of songs and filters.
Videos often have song lip syncing, funny scenes, and unusual editing tricks.
ByteDance, the current developer of the app, was founded in 2012 and is based in Beijing, China. In 2017, the company bought Musical.ly, another Chinese app that had been successful in the US In 2018, Musical.ly was renamed TikTok.
WeChat is a messaging application similar to WhatsApp. It is the most popular courier in China, but its presence in other regions is reduced.
The application is developed by Tencent, one of the largest technology companies in China.
WeChat combines several functions in the messenger, including a digital wallet for transferring money.
In the US, it is widely used by Chinese immigrants to chat with their friends and family in China, where US apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others are banned.
This article is being updated.
