TikTok threatened to sue President Donald Trump Friday for signing an executive order prohibiting individuals from communicating with the Chinese social media app’s parent company over the next 45 days.
The executive order, which also impacts Chinese app WeChat, was issued Thursday night “without any due process,” TikTok said in a press statement.
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President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered a sweeping but unspecified ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of consumer apps TikTok and WeChat, although it remains unclear if he has the legal authority to actually ban the apps from the U.S.
The twin executive orders — one for each app — take effect in 45 days. They call on the Commerce Secretary to define the banned dealings by that time. While the wording of the orders is vague, some experts said it appears intended to bar the popular apps from the Apple and Google app stores, which could effectively remove them from distribution in the U.S.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer to discuss Trump’s potential ban on TikTok and whether Joe Biden will show up to debates.
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Two days after President Trump told reporters that he plans to ban TikTok from the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in an interview with Fox News that executive action may soon be taken against many other apps owned by Chinese firms.
Trump remarked to journalists aboard Air Force One on Friday that he could ban TikTok “with an executive order,” suggesting that the president has made up his mind about the popular short video platform. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance, has been at the center of a months-long debate over whether the data that it collects from American users could be exploited by China’s government.
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TikTok has hired several Democratic and Republican operatives to lobby the U.S. governmental amid concerns that the social media platform represents a national security threat.
The company hired several operatives recently to lobby on TikTok’s behalf, including Michael Hacker, who worked as a senior advisor to Democratic House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, CNBC reported Friday. TikTok hired two executives from the Internet Association as well, according to the report.
Read More Two Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at banning federal employees from using Chinese social media app TikTok on their government-issued phones, amid growing national security concerns around the collection and sharing of data on U.S. users with China’s government.
Read More TikTok reinstated a pro-life group’s account Friday and cited “human error” after the platform said Live Action was permanently banned from TikTok Thursday.
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WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Army is undertaking a security assessment of China-owned social media platform TikTok after a Democratic lawmaker raised national security concerns over the app’s handling of user data, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Thursday.
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U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told TikTok on Tuesday it must put an end to Chinese-linked efforts to collect data from American children.
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NEW YORK / BEIJING / WASHINGTON – The U.S. government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co.’s $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, according to two people familiar with the matter.
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