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Americans will no longer be able to download TikTok starting Sunday, when the Trump administration will ban it from American app stores.
The Commerce Department issued an order on Friday that will prohibit people in the United States from downloading the Chinese-owned video-sharing app and messaging app WeChat, three officials told Reuters.
Officials said the ban on new TikTok downloads in the US could be overturned by President Donald Trump before it goes into effect Sunday night, as TikTok owner ByteDance rushes to shut down a agreement on the destination of its operations in the USA.
People who already have the apps on their phones will be able to keep and use them. However, they won’t be able to download updates, which will eventually make your experience downgraded.
President Trump’s administration to ban downloads of TikTok and WeChat, two Chinese-owned apps
ByteDance has been in talks with Oracle Corp and others to create a new company, TikTok Global, which aims to address US concerns about the security of its users’ data. ByteDance still needs Trump’s approval to avoid a US ban.
The Commerce Department order will ‘tear down’ the two apps in the United States and prohibit Apple Inc’s app store, Alphabet Inc’s Google Play and others from offering the apps on any platform ‘that can be accessed from within. the United States, ‘said a Commerce executive. an official told Reuters.
Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made public.
Trump said on Wednesday he was not ready to sign a deal for Oracle to buy TikTok from its Chinese parent company, citing national security concerns and wanting to make sure the US government gets its share.
‘It has to be 100 percent when it comes to national security. No, I am not prepared to approve anything. I have to see the deal, ” Trump said. They will inform me tomorrow morning and I will let you know.
He also said that he was surprised to learn that the United States cannot take part of the TikTok deal and that he will have the government investigate it.
“Surprisingly, I find that he is not allowed to do that,” he said at his press conference when asked about payments to the Treasury Department for the sale, an idea he had promoted. “There is no way to do that since – there is no legal way to do that.”
Trump was briefed on the matter by Treasury officials Thursday morning.
‘Are they willing to make a big payment to the government and we are not allowed to take their money? When this happens, how dumb can we be? We are looking into that right now. I said no, I want a large part of that money to go to the United States government because we made it possible, ”he complained.
‘The lawyers come back to me and tell me there is no way to do that. You know why?’ he said. “Because no one ever said that we will approve the deal, but we want a lot of money for the government. Because by approving the deal, we are making it valuable. They had never heard of it before. Okay? Can you believe it?’
Trump said he also did not like that the US buying company had a minority stake in the Chinese company.
I do not like that. They haven’t told me that yet. That has been reported but I have not been told. It could be an accurate report for a change. If that’s the case, I won’t be happy about it. Assuming ByteDance is China and I think it is, ” he said.
Walmart, which was working with Microsoft on an earlier bid to buy the popular app, said in a statement Sunday that it “continues to have an interest in an investment in TikTok and continues discussions with ByteDance leadership and other stakeholders.”
TikTok ownership fate remains in limbo with Oracle and Wal-Mart interested
Chinese authorities have said they would not allow ByteDance to sell the algorithms used by TikTok, which are believed to carry much of the app’s value.
While a deal is being negotiated, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday that “innovation is the most important quality of business management, and it is also what we must overcome obstacles to do in the future.”
“The key technology should be kept firmly in our own hands,” he added, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency.
Friday’s order will not prohibit US companies from doing business on WeChat outside the United States, which will be good news for US companies such as Walmart and Starbucks that use WeChat’s built-in ‘applet’ programs to facilitate transactions and engage. to consumers in China.
The order will not prohibit transactions with other businesses of WeChat owner Tencent Holdings, including its online gaming operations, and will not prohibit Apple, Google, or others from offering TikTok or WeChat applications anywhere outside of the United States.
The bans are in response to a pair of executive orders issued by Trump on Aug. 6 that gave the Commerce Department 45 days to determine which transactions to block from apps it believes pose a threat to national security. That deadline expires on Sunday.
Commerce Department officials said they were taking an extraordinary step due to the risks posed by collecting data from apps. China and the companies have denied collecting data from US users for spying.
In a statement to Reuters, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that ‘we have taken significant steps to combat the malicious collection of personal data of US citizens by China, while promoting our national values, rules-based democratic norms and aggressive enforcement of US laws and regulations. ‘ ‘
The order will be posted at 8:45 am EDT (1245 GMT) on Friday, officials said.
The Trump administration has stepped up its efforts to purge ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps from US digital networks, calling TikTok and WeChat ‘major threats’.
The Trump administration has stepped up its efforts to purge ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps from US digital networks, calling TikTok and WeChat ‘significant threats’
TikTok has 100 million users in the US and WeChat has 19 million users in the US.
TikTok has 100 million users in the United States and is especially popular with younger Americans.
WeChat has averaged 19 million daily active users in the United States, analytics firms Apptopia said in early August. It is popular with Chinese students, expats, and some Americans who have personal or business relationships in China.
WeChat is an all-in-one mobile application that combines services similar to Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Venmo. The app is an essential part of daily life for many in China and has more than 1 billion users.
The Commerce Department will not seek to force people in the United States to remove apps or stop using them, but it will not allow updates or new downloads. ‘We are aiming for a higher corporate level. We are not going to go after individual users, ”said a Commerce official.
Over time, officials said, the lack of updates will degrade the usability of the apps.
“The expectation is that people will find alternative ways to carry out these actions,” said a senior official. “We hope the market will act and there will be more secure applications that will fill these gaps that Americans can trust and that the US government will not have to take similar action on.”
Commerce is also banning additional technical transactions with WeChat starting Sunday that will significantly reduce the usability and functionality of the app in the United States.
The order prohibits data hosting within the United States for WeChat, content delivery services, and networks that may increase the functionality and traffic of the Internet or traffic exchange services.
“What will happen immediately is that users will experience a lag or lack of functionality,” a senior Commerce official said of WeChat users. “It may still be usable, but it won’t be as functional as before.” There may also be sporadic outages, the official said.
Commerce will ban the same set of technical transactions for TikTok, but that won’t go into effect until November 12 to give the company additional time to see if ByteDance can reach a deal for its US operations. The official said that TikTok users in the US wouldn’t see ‘a major difference’ in app performance until November 12.
Commerce will not penalize people who use TikTok or WeChat in the United States. The order does not prohibit the storage of data within the United States for WeChat or TikTok.
Some Americans may find alternative solutions. There is nothing to stop an American from traveling to a foreign country and downloading any of the apps, or potentially using a virtual private network and desktop client, the officials admitted.
