The United States Department of Commerce announced today that, as of Sunday September 20, any attempts to keep TikTok available to download on any app store will be absolutely prohibited. This same restriction is also being applied to WeChat.
On August 6, 2020, President Trump signed an executive order stating that within 45 days, any transaction with ByteDance Ltd, the company behind TikTok, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States would be prohibited. This Sunday, 45 days will have passed since the signing of the executive order and TikTok will be banned from all app stores. Per a press release, the Department of Commerce has confirmed that this ban will take effect Sunday night.
Users who already have the application downloaded will be able to continue using it, though they will not have access to future updates or app maintenance. If you do not have the app downloaded, but believe that you may want to use it at some point, make sure you get it done before Sunday night, or you may be completely out of luck. TikTok and Oracle have a deal in place that would allow the app to continue to thrive in the US, a deal in which the user info and security code would be hosted by Oracle, TikTok’s US partner. This deal has yet to be approved by President Trump, though the deadline is not until November 12, so there is plenty of time.
The ban was initially proposed for national security measures, to combat Chinese censorship laws and to “protect Americans from the threats of the Chinese Communist Party,” according to the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Wilbur Ross. ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is run in China, and the fear is that the data collected from its over 100 million US users could be used for political interference and blackmail.
Believe it or not, there is a silver lining to this ban – especially if it only ends up being temporary – as it may help resolve some of the technological feuds between China and the US. There are numerous US technologies that have been banned in China, including both Facebook and Google. A ban on TikTok in the US would significantly impact the revenue generated by the app and may push the Communist Party of China to loosen their own restrictions on foreign sites and technologies.
If you’re a TikTok user, you need not worry about the feds breaking down your door. It will not be illegal to use the app. It will only be prohibited for tech companies to distribute the app in their stores. With the existence of VPNs, it’s unlikely that this ban will prove much effective anyway, though if it pushes the Oracle-ByteDance deal to go through, the ban would ultimately prove positive and help make TikTok a safer, more secure app to use.
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