Topic: Donald Trump signs executive orders banning TikTok and WeChat (Read 877 times)

It is more likely some companies which already have an history of collecting and mishandling information of their users will take the place of Tik tok, instead new platforms appearing and making clear their priority is security and privacy, to be honest. Actually, it has been established Meta/Facebook is specially interested in Tik Tok being banned/outlawed in the United States, since Til Tok id a formidable direct competition to Facebook and Instagram.
All this situation would be easier to handle if both foreign and national social media companies had to comply with the same regulations about storage of data and respect to privacy, but this case is about a company being foreign and having the potential capability to mess with USA society and politics in the long term.

Increase the power of the Department of Commerce plan? But I wasn't focusing on that. I was focusing on who was being reduced in power if government increases in power. Isn't it the people?

When the power of the people is reduced, to freely communicate where they want, where does such reduction stop? When government forces the people to all wear gray clothing, and to not go to school to learn about freedom, and to not communicate with anybody else, even each other at home?

That's the point... freedom for the people reduction. Not government increase in power.

In defense of my reasoning, i have never been a fan of Tiktok since i heard it as a spying concern signals on sensitive data and national security. The Action is long overdue there should be a regulatory scrutiny over tech platforms or introduction of new apps on any platform market, setting precedents for transparency is important.

Users privacy risks associated with social media apps are so inherent these days. This ban may stimulate the development of alternative platformsthat will prioritize users privacy and data protection.

So you are suggesting behind of this bill there is actually a plan to increase the power of the Department of Commerce, in order for them to do whatever they want with technological companies and products which happen to have any link with a foreign company/organization.
Sure, to me it sounds rather authoritarian to use this law this way. This bill was supposed to be only about Tik Tok or at the maximum, about companies (technological companies) based on China and looking to stockpile as much information from the People of the United States as possible.
I believe the problem is not the gathering of information per se, but rather the fact it is being done by the Communist Chinese Party, you know, it is a good thing when the CIA/FBI is able to spy on everyone, but it is not good when a foreign entity also manages to get that power.
People from Washintong know information is power and they are north willing to give any more power to the CCP than they already have, thanks to their manufacturing power and capabilities in the world market.

The point is the security risk involved with Tik-Tok. So, it's all about security.

If the bill is passed, use it to adjudicate against the government people who passed it. After all, they are a security risk. How? By making a bill/law that takes away freedom and intellectual property rights of common people.

Of course, there are other laws they are breaking with such a bill. Adjudicate against them for breaking those other laws, as well... including their Oaths of Office.


While the GOP Focuses on TikTok, Google Prepares to Devour Everyone Whole

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https://revolver.news/2023/04/while-gop-focuses-on-tiktok-google-prepares-to-devour-everyone-whole/
And yet, the process of banning it is hitting a big stumbling block: Hapless lawmaking. Republican Congressman chasing for a “win” against Big Tech have instead embarrassed themselves and exposed their base to long-term tyranny at the hands of the U.S. administrative state.

Banning TikTok ought to be simple, so naturally, it’s anything but. Instead, Congress is on the precipice of “stopping” TikTok by granting vague, sweeping regulatory authority to yet another branch of the federal government. This time, instead of the FBI, CIA, or DHS, Americans will learn to fear the omnipotent powers of the Department of Commerce.

The bill in question is called the “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act,” or as it is mercifully abbreviated, the “RESTRICT Act.” The purpose of the RESTRICT Act is, essentially, to allow the Secretary of Commerce to blacklist any tech product, service, or company linked to a “national adversary” that the Secretary considers a threat. For anything banned under the act, a whole universe of “transactions” with them become illegal, and subject to harsh penalties.

Even the press release from Senators Mark Warner and John Thune bragging about the bill’s introduction hints at its underlying problems:

    The RESTRICT Act establishes a risk-based process, tailored to the rapidly changing technology and threat environment, by directing the Department of Commerce to identify and mitigate foreign threats to information and communications technology products and services.
...

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Bringing this thread back to the first page because how lately the lawmakers of the United States are again aiming to restrict or even ban Tik tok, in the case it does not get sold to a North American company which would take over it.

Both politicians and the people of the United States seems to be submerged in an intense debate on whether the existence of the Application in their national markets is indeed a threat against national security, because the undisclosed gathering of information by the company behind the management of Tik Tok.
Though, it is important to point out there are companies in the United States (like Meta) which would benefit much from the ban of Tik Tok, since it would be an opportunity for someone else in the market to replace the app.
I think it won't get banned, it is more likely it will get sold to a different entity.

What are your thoughts on this situation with this app, do you sincerely believe it is a threat against the national security of the United States?

I have never said that facebook should be allowed, I have never said anything about any american company, I am not american myself so I would rather tiktok, facebook, instagram and all the other websites that collects data from you personally should be banned, but this DOES include tiktok and we are on the topic of tiktok right now.

If you want you can open a topic about facebook collecting data and we could argue that how that is wrong as well, but to come on tiktok topic and say that "facebook does it too" is the epitome of trying to clear tiktok for doing something very illegal and very very much evil.

Tiktok should be banned all around the world and the headquarters should be demolished, if you want to talk about other places go do it on another place and I will come agree with you I promise, but here we are talking about Chinese dictator that kills tens of millions of people every year collecting your data, there is no "what about" in this situation.

Also, Chinese spy used WeChat to chat with partners in India regarding Dalai Lama.
And Indian is also considering banning WeChat.

Here's the latest of this long saga, Microsoft out of race to purchase TikTok as US ban draws near. So who's left? Oracle, very interesting that Oracle is really making a pitch to get this controversial apps for now.

I heard that if an American company buys Toktok then they have to pay a part of the payment made to the government as a form of tax or something like that, is it really true or just a rumour?

Meanwhile Instragram rolled out the tiktok like feature in their platform which is exact replica of Tiktok so already lot of users might moved to Reels!

^^ and it seems another player has come into the picture, Oracle throws hat in the ring for TikTok US operations purchase: report.


And another news is this, This be TikTok CEO Kevin Mayar exits, and his reasons? "The decision to leave, after joining on June 1, is due to the political environment 'sharply' changing.". Everyone is really trying to get their hands on Tiktok and I don't think that Trump can do anything about it.

I think the problem for a country like the US is what China would be able to do with American data and what they would use that for.

Would they potentially use it to sway Presidential elections or to push pro china policies in the US as they have the eyes and ears of the American voter? (I mean at least the younger generation on TIKTOK)

So that's the reason that the Trump admin is pushing them out of the US, collecting data on US people is something that the US only wants done by OUR companies.

Another addition to this thread, seems like a few more companies have joined into the bidding for TikTok. Microsoft, Walmart, Twitter, and some others.

Tiktok is not something like QQ, it is their own idea and China produces quality products as well from Iphone to parts for space crafts and lot more.Tiktok was created with good intention of teaching things online with quick videos but it went into big failure then they changed into something which shows nudity related contents it it got famous world wide.

When I saw the news on CNN, it says the they were given 45 days to either sell it or face being banned. So, if the parent company that owns Tiktok, which is a Chinese company, doesn’t sell it to a US company they will end up being banned, and WeChat will also face the same if they are not sold to a US company as well. I know that all these things were triggered by the coronavirus that came out from China, everyone is pissed about it. The first time they talked about this, that was Mike Pompeo, I saw the video of him on Twitter pleading with app stores to take down every bad Chinese applications.

From there Trump took over, and got serious about it. Well, even the Chinese has been doing some things that are similar to this, I’ve seen them ban some apps, and also try to go into countries and buy their businesses during this Coronavirus breakout...what can I say?

I agree, how can people argue against banning TikTok. No one knows for sure how close the ties to the communist party are. How we guarantee that our data is not stored in China? Also, don't forget that WhatsApp and Instagram is banned in China. Why should chinese Apps be allowed outside of China, if they ban western technology? Unban foreign technology first, than we can talk about accepting chinese Apps. But they would never do that because they wouldn't be apply to control the information being displayed. This is just another form of censorships we need to stick up against.

But as long as it's Facebook, Google or any other US company, it's just fine? I am 100% with you that people should be warned that TikTok is collecting all sorts of information from your phone. But as I said before, banning it with the argument that TikTok is stealing data is just so hypocritical when your own country does exactly the same.

How the hell would you sue USA or Trump? If it was just a regular company I would understand, hell Trump could ban Twitter itself because he is a butthurt person and he would definitely do his best to make sure he "wins" over someone when in fact he is obviously losing. When twitter shuts him up dude wanted to shut twitter down in response, that is his response to anything, either they love trump or they will be shut down, he is a pure fascist.

However tiktok is literally stealing data by the bunches, it makes sense that any nation would ban tiktok because why would anyone want to have some chinese company have some sort of data breach into their own nation and provide all that sensitive information to a foreign nation, one that is so dangerous. That is why I think it makes sense, the lawsuit would be for nothing at all.

Lawsuits won't matter.

For sure there's been NSA/CIA/FBI involvement and advice in this matter.

But you and I don't know those facts.

waiting for the presidential order where he will ban his own twitter acc lol

And it seems this is far from over, as TikTok to sue US government over ban.

So they are going to fight and challenge Trumps Executive Order against them. Let's see how it goes, it's not clear as to where they are going to file it's lawsuit.

so serves right here. if they are banning fb, google, twitter and others, i think it's time for the world to ban chinese socmed also especially this tiktok..but anyway, i guess most of the users of this app are millennials who have nothing to do but share whatever they want, their daily life and so on. needs affirmation from others via likes or comments. but for oldies, we dont need these..

Here you are talking about a business that will always find a way to contact, there are still email services, etc.
Business needs WeChat (since you are talking about it) but I think that they are not so much companies than need it that trump would listen to business opinion on this point.

China is looking for ways to manipulate the world economy by exporting all the goods it can make money with to other countries. They also export Chinese culture. They created TikTok, WeChat to collect the data of people around the world, but they banned other technology companies from developing in China. In China, they don't use FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, TWITTER ... They also use a firewall to block people from accessing social media accounts. It is time for the world to look back on China's economic and social influence. I don't think Tiktok will sell himself to Microsoft because they understand that they have too much influence on the world.

But this is only temporarily ban on them right, not even the app got banned meanwhile, what happened with Microsoft buying tiktok?

Is there any update related to that?

We know that WeChat is Chinese whats ap version, but many people around the world download this we chat application so they can connect with China, especially for business matters. Because other applications are restricted in China, many people who want to communicate easily with Chinese residents are forced to install the WeChat application. I am one of those who actively use the WeChat application to communicate with my buyers who buy fresh and live seafood products for the Chinese and Hong Kong markets. China is very smart, right?

All is fair in love and war, this is an economic supremacy war. China is a closed system that want their products to see no competition, so nothing wrong with what President Trump has done.

This is of course a very funny situation - but I'm more interested in the outcome than the process. What will people say (all these young people who upload millions of videos into tiktok every day) when their favorite entertainment is banned? It will be interesting to see how much all these left-wing units love their freedom and what they will be willing to do to defend it. If the BLM didn't work for trump (he just recognized Antifa as terrorists), what can we expect from him now?
WeChat is even funnier because this messenger is not needed by anyone except the Chinese themselves in their native China so it's even funnier

Political matter or not but i do see such decision was just really right but we cant really deny the fact that they can do all things that they want.If they want to impose ban then they can do it without minding on what
would be the possible industries or sectors would be mainly affected.

Sooner or later there would be such changes about those Bans just like on what happened with Huawie trade ban and this one about Tiktok and wechat. There are no other ways to change this stuff
as long the president itself wont lift such decision.

Personal war? High chances.

I had thought this was just for tiktok, didn't know wechat was included, well, anyway it's nothing a VPN can't solve. I know many US businesses (including crypto businesses) use WeChat to contact chinese users. Let's see how they implement it in the end

It's obvious that he doesn't care about that, even if we accept the premise that those two applications are surveilling people Trump is not doing this because of that, as we know he is engaged in a personal war against China and he is going to take any excuse to try to keep reminding people of this, so this is not about the right of privacy of their citizens this is nothing more but a political move done by the US president.

If he really cared about the privacy of his citizens then other measures should follow and social networks like Facebook and Twitter must change their policies or face the same consequences, but we need to be honest with ourselves that is never going to happen.

Trump's every move is to take a higher version stand against China. Right now the ban of applications by America and India is a big blow over the China. Other than technology based attack, America can't take a step forward to fight China. I state this based on the export data from China. It supplies majority of the materials required for production in various industrial sector.

But, when such applications are banned the company loses a mass revenue nonetheless as they cannot accept in-app payments from their users who are using proxy to bypass and use the applications.

Indeed and if I am not wrong they have banned google and have their own search engine something called as baidu if I am not wrong and there is nothing wrong for USA to ban Chinese products when the vice-versa is already true since years.

Countries are now getting smarter and realize that China slowly stopped importing anything while being the export giant and now right steps are being taken to bring stability because you cannot expect to ban USA products while trying to market them your own products.

Almost all countries have a trade deficit with China, as well as America. But the origin of Trump's heated relationship with China is that Xi Jing ping has absolute power by becoming a lifelong leader which is a form of rejection of the democratic agreement made between Reagan and Deng Xiao Ping.

Trump is a nationalist who meets a nationalist Xi so that the relationship between the two countries is heating up, ranging from a trade war to a biotechnology war. Trump also uses political issues with China to increase his popularity in welcoming the 2020 elections.

Colonialism 5.0 Chinese style under the guise of investment is China's step to conquering all countries and so that all countries pay tribute to China.

Of course not; nor do I think Trump really cares about the privacy effects of these two apps.  There's probably a lot more going on behind the scenes as far as motivation goes that the public isn't aware of, and I don't take any statements by Trump at face value.

The US isn't at war with China, though the relations between the two countries are strained to say the least.  My hope is that Trump won't get re-elected in November and that all the damage he's done can start to be undone by his replacement.  I wouldn't put money on it, though, as I never underestimate the stupidity of the American voters.

Nah, that's been the case for many years now.  Trump might not like it, but he certainly hasn't done anything constructive in terms of bringing jobs back into the US which are currently being done in China and other countries.  He's just a big bag of wind.

I like this news, because I am against the existence of this application, and if those rumors about data collection by the application are still true, then I all the more support blocking the application not only in the USA, but also around the world

It is not just Trump and the American government taking a stand against China, India already banned many applications last month and all of their popular applications had millions of users and a combination of billion user base and you are not able to use those even with the use of VPN. I had a TikTok account before the ban and i tried to use my account with a VPN but i was not able to use my account.

Trump will never end this battle against China  as long as he is the US president while the effect is already obvious towards their economy.

Accusing tiktok and wechat as a surveillance apparatus of china to the whole world.(this is what i have watched in news)

What about US having eye  to the world?

Buying what?well the whole world is buying so much thing from china but why only Trump is making this stand against the Chinese government?

Yeah china is also aggressive but they have the rights because they have already investment in every country and even the strongest country in the world has credit from them.

Trump is getting aggressive to China because they are being taken down by China in their economy that most of their products and manufacturers are now from China. Even their products are made in the US, but the materials that is being used are from China because it is cheap or affordable. It is why Trump's decided to ban TikTok and other Chinese products in their country because they assume it might be the way to beat Chinese economy.

The products of google company such as amazon, facebook, youtube are prohibited in China, Trump's being aggressive towards China does not change this, because China already has antipathy to American products, I am not talking about the Chinese people.
I think Trump is aggressive because the United States is buying too much from China.

There are too many countries including china they banned many websites and services such as telegram, twitter, facebook, youtube, etc... but since there services are used by millions of users, still people will find a way to bypass the suspension usually using some sort of vpn service. however, there are always some alternative services after banning these services people will join another alternative one easily.

Every country has the authority to take any policies based on national threats and national interests. If a country wants to develop its private sector and the nation's children have a role in society, of course the government must protect and prioritize domestic products. For example in China, after Alibaba controlled the majority of the Chinese market, then Amazon was allowed to operate in China. If the products of the nation's children lose at home to foreign players, it is likely that it is mismanagement by government officials.

Good luck trying to reason with a young person about one of his favorite apps being forbidden by the president and then try to convince that very same person to vote for you during the next elections.

While I understand why Donald Trump did this and I do not see it with bad eyes at the same time the American public is very sensitive to any kind of censorship and they're not going to like this one bit and I'll not be surprised if this affected his popularity and the decision cost him a significant amount of votes that could prove critical during the next elections in which he's having problems already to gain support from the population.

I was thinking the same thing China could easily have their revenge by banning facebook in their country but then facebook is not just a social application, it is a business for most of the people coz it has a marketplace. " Threatens to impair the security of the United States " , Trump by saying this alone is a hypocrite himself, America has been accused of more like this before they are just good in defending themselves coz some country will know what will happen if they try to mess with United States, now that there are bigger countries than America they are threatened.

I guess the case with tiktok and facebook is different, every country could simply say this but the thing is facebook has its own server and do not disclose any information to the government, that's what the facebook said. 

I really don't have any concern as to what the president did. One thing I know is that, the decision would be made based on intelligence report and facts for him to rely on and not necessary because of the beef between the two countries. The president signed an oath to protect the citizen and the constitution and if this action is part of it without ulterior motives, then it's still his constitutional rights.

In this case, if USA is bothered by the fact that TikTok is stealing information of USA citizens and gives it to China, could other nations also ban Facebook?

I mean it is an american company that is basically giving politicians and other bad people information on people that allows them to actually steal those information and use it to better themselves either in power or in money, facebook and tiktok literally has zero difference when it comes to actually stealing information. So, if USA is so bothered about tiktok, why shouldn't other nations be bothered by facebook?

I think it is only fair that facebook should be banned overseas as well. Don't get me wrong I hate china as much as the next guy and I am very very glad that tiktok is banned there, it should be banned everywhere around the world, but also should facebook and instagram as well.

India started this technology war by banning several of the applications from China citing security concerns and the same is followed by the US, the amount of money these companies loose is huge and hence they are trying to negotiate with other local businesses to carry on with the business in banned countries as they are loosing millions every month because of these restrictions.

 In India TikTok has approached Reliance to purchase the application for the Indian audience and in the US they have approached Microsoft and the decision depends upon the government approval.

WeChat has been released in the following OS: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows. So imagine how many users potentially used it. In Playstore alone, it has been downloaded in millions so there's a big possibility that there are many users outside of China have it installed in their system. But the problem is with Trump, and it seems that he is blaming China for everything that has happened not just in the US but the whole world. And I agree that this is politically motivated indeed. He wanted to flex his muscle again to the Chinese.

it is all about the stupid US supremacy that Trump thinks can only be achieved by greasing the pole behind you and his whole foreign policy is based on that.
the only "threat" these companies pose is that they have taken the market from their exact US copies.

with that logic companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and lots of other US based companies should be shut down because they pose a similar national security and capture much vaster swaths of information from their users. not to mention the NSA should be shut down too!

They are doing this for years, China do something we see a retaliation from the US, US do something we see retaliation from China! Big corporations
and their interest across the world, who will make more profit, who will have more power... and they are big even now, probably they wish to be bigger
in the future. If I am not in crypto I would be one of the conspiracy theorists probably, but I am in crypto and I don't give a fuck for their stupid social
networks and all other centralized corporations! Crypto can solve many problems, solving a need for centralized governments is the one of the best things
crypto can do!

There are still plenty of people who uses WeChat in their country, having connections with China. People are mentioning the word "spy" then, of course, all of the related apps to China should be banned even there are no or few users of it. That's how you implement security measures, there should be no exception and they're currently having a war with China, it's not just about 'hating' them.

Chinese have their goal of conquering all of the nations without implementing military war, and that method is working right now, other nations are aware of it. The current pandemic is also advantage for them, they're freely increasing their economic and showing that they aren't affected of it.

With all the fuss regarding Chinese apps, it's not a surprise that Trump is going to do this. There might be vulnerabilities being caused by the applications with all the spying and everything.

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There are some people who use WeChat even when they are not residing in China. I have used it before but forgot my account there. Now, it's quite hard to register knowing that you need someone to activate it for you and is actually an active user in WeChat.

I remember someone posting in BTCT wanting to look for someone who has WeChat to activate it for him.

Why do you think would Trump or the US want to escalate the tensions to a military conflict? For Trump only to get reelected? The US has enough problems already on their own soil, so going into a war they cannot win is definitely not what they want.

Looks like Trump just hating everything that connected with China. Who the hell use wechat outside China?

I don't understand the way the Chinese government thinks, because based on the information I got, Donald Trump decided to ban TikTok and
WeChat. Starting from China, which previously banned several sites from America, one of which was China that banned Facebook. So apart
from the issue of spying and theft of personal data, TikTok and WeChat platforms will be banning by President Trump for retaliation. Because
China started banned many American websites first. In fact, India first banned TikTok and WeChat related to border conflicts. So I think China
is always looking for problems with other countries.

They are doing everything to ban Chinese product not unless those Chinese company agrees to the terms and conditions of USA. American companies will always be under the influence of their own government, and will always follow them or else they will face consequences as well.

This can be a good move considering the trust issues with China right now, and many teenagers are sharing their personal details without thinking for the consequences. We might see other countries to follow this especially India since the tension on their border continues to heat up.

It was very funny - first trump lashed out at Ticktock and today Apple and Google have removed Fortnite from their stores. It feels like this is all some very bad game... Imagine a crowd of ten thousand teenagers who demand to return their freedom to post a cringe in Tiktok and spend money in fortnite. The most terrible force!

In the future, this trade war will spread to a military war between the US and China. Most likely, a major war between the two countries has occurred through the COVID19 virus in December 2019 (and we are also affected by this annoying thing).
Then a few weeks ago, in China it rained incessantly which resulted in flooding

https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/china/article/3094790/china-floods/index.html

This incident is of course very strange, and there are indications that this is one of the pranks of a country that owns a tool that can manipulate the weather, namely HAARP.

https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program

And the indication of war will occur before the election on US, and can be sure this is the will of the current president

https://eurasiantimes.com/us-could-attack-nansha-islands-in-south-china-sea-before-us-elections-chinese-military-experts/

I'm not interested in this war, but if WW3 happens my whole family will be disturbed. In other words, I will side with one of the countries to jazz up the war

Since 2012 Tiktok technology has been giving a challenge to all viewers in social media by projecting their ability or talent in 3 to 15 seconds and basically it is suitable to all open-minded most especially on young audiences. I think for how many years of their services in the world,nothing went wrong about this desirable social network, eventually, due to the faulty producing a bad influence video through the related person, in a seconds they had a fundamental breach to all aspects that the theory on the unexpected happen has been incapable of bridging, the question behind this is why their artificial intelligence are allowing this matter, honestly, almost all teenagers had a constant irritates by US president due to the executive orders of banning.

So, potentially this is going to be the biggest acquisition of Microsoft then.
They really see a really huge profit from TikTok as it has not been in its peak yet. I personally don't think TikTok will eventually die down without the Microsoft making tons of profit from it.
I'm not sure, but lets see and wait what's next to happen.

On the other end, I doubt this ban hasn't something to do with the threat to national security (not at least from how the app was created), but this is more like a personal purpose for Trump against China.

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning popular Chinese apps like TikTok and therefore the like as a threat to national security and therefore the country's economy. US President Donald Trump has taken far better steps to ban TikTok. they're taking personal data through Google and Facebook the Chinese communist party also will allow Americans to access personal and proprietary information and Tick Talk has been banned for security reasons.

On the contrary, there has been a reports that Microsoft itself with generate billions up acquiring Tiktok,

https://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/20/08/17010623/what-buying-tiktok-could-mean-for-microsoft

But remain to be seen.

So let's see how Microsoft could turn around this ban from Trump. Initially it was said the ban is just for 45 days so perhaps after that it will be allowed but with censorship. So it could be the blunder of the century (for Microsoft at least).

I think Donald Trump's moves are correct. He has just banned a few Chinese websites and apps. The software was accused of stealing user data. It's too dangerous.
China has banned most apps and websites from the US, such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo ...
China can ban apps coming from the US market, as well as ban back. In this comparison, I think China has banned more than the US.

The more interesting the war between China and America, before that China had banned several websites from America.
I think it is only natural for Donald Trump to do the same with China by planning to ban TikTok and WeChat. Moreover,
the issue of spying and stealing information from the TikTok and WeChat applications is what Trump is afraid of. What these
two countries have done provides a bad example for other countries, this kind of unfair competition will be detrimental
both sides.

The world has been shifting to globalism for some decades now, it's unlikely that one person in power can reverse course at this point. Think for a second if Facebook, Twitter, Amazon etc. could only get traffic from US users because of a nationalist policy. This hurts the company, and all the consumers elsewhere that could've benefited from the service. Also, if Honda, Toyota et al could only sell their cars to Japanese customers, then demand will decrease and cause a drop in markets and eventually make a depression.

I believe that in this situation it really is a matter of state security measures, since the United States is in a difficult position and given that social networks Tiktok are of Chinese origin, that is, there is a suspicion that the Chinese government may collect personal data using this application. In this regard, the US government is conducting a serious investigation. And apparently the problems are very serious if Microsoft suspended negotiations with the Chinese company ByteDance.

Many teenagers will probably become clueless why Donald Trump is preparing to ban their favorite app Tiktok. Most of the young ones are not that knowledgeable about those security and they are not aware about those people in China that might enter their privacy. They are ignorant about these scenarios that's why the number of people who are using this platforms are increasing from time to time. Trump is just defending its citizen towards China's software that might attack their country's privacy. This is a great move for Trump but its citizen will not see this as a good decision or good move because they are just focusing on their own benefits on using that Tiktok app.

It's a perfect step by US administration. First India banned 59 Chinese apps and now US. I hope rest of world will follow the same and ban any kind of Chinese origin apps. Also I don't think we need a discussion on that!

Chinese government had banned any kind of non-chinese apps and websites since a long time now. You can't access Google, Facebook, whatsapp from China. They have their own version of such apps under Chinese ownership. So when US made apss can't do business in Chinese soil, why Chinese apps should be allowed to do business with the rest of the world?

If a company from USA ends up buying tiktok that would be the worst type of acqusation out there. Tiktok is just a social media phenom right now that will die down, all remember vine? Everyone was using vine for a long period of time and after a while they all stopped, now almost nobody uses it, or at least I haven't seen any in years.

So that means tiktok is something to ban right now, and if you ban it, that means you will not get to see it for a long period of time ever again, it will die down, however if you end up buying it, that means you are going to pay a lot of money at its peak height for something that will die down and not be big of a deal anymore. I wouldn't even buy facebook right now, not the company but the website, so that shows how much I think tiktok is a bad decision for microsoft.

From what I know Microsoft already bought TikTok's US market for 50 Billion dollars and that deal is the supposed solution for TikTok being banned in the US. They just confirmed it yesterday and that executive order is nothing now since the sale of their US market branch is now owned by a US company. Although they might not be operating right now as there will be various changes as well as inspections just to make sure that the new software/app of TikTok hasn't have any malicious software in it.

It is just another form of censorship, because the Trump administration knows platforms like TikTok and WeChat are not under their control and movements like the BLM protestors are turning to platforms like this to expose the real problems in the USA.

China and these platforms are not using algorithms to hide or moderate this type of criticism of his government and the actions of his police force and he does not like that, because it will hurt him in the next election.

People also use these platforms to organize protests and the US government has no control to monitor who is behind these actions, because it is not a US based company. (even worst, it is owned by a Chinese company)  

Even before, these two countries are competing with most things.

As long as there will be unity for these two countries, don't expect that they will stop competing in most things. Banning here, banning there.

Everything is interconnected with business, and this is where Microsoft is using it an opportunity to acquire tiktok. ByteDance which is the authority for tiktok hasn't shown any sign of interest selling it to Microsoft. When China has got its own application, why should other countries let Chinese applications make revenue out of other countries. My opinion too is the same, I don't find anything wrong with it. With more number of applications banned from usage, there is a huge loss being faced by the Chinese technology based firms. Maybe they'll soon tie-up with some other companies to have its global presence for sure.

We knew this was coming so it is not really a surprise but at the same time it is interesting that the president has decided to actually follow through with his threats, because no one is really going to believe his reasoning, after all we know that all social media platforms spy on you and try to get as much information as they can so they can monetize you.

In that sense TikTok is not really that different from any other social media site and application the only difference is that since that application comes from China they have forbidden it, but when we take into account that many applications and websites are banned in China then in a way it makes sense that the United States has finally decided to do the same.

Personally I don't see anything wrong about Tiktok getting banned on the US since most US and Western apps are banned in China. You can't properly run Google straight-up on a Chinese phone and you have to do some tweaking before Gapps run smoothly without a hitch. Also, it's not new that apps like this is used for spying and gathering sensitive information on other countries. I would not like to sound like these things are coming straight out of a fictional action film but it's the reality. Heck, there are some small applications that has nothing to do with altering and managing phone calls and messages but you need to allow the app to access those in order for it to work as intended.

As for the ban, I'm not entirely sure whether Microsoft acquiring it is a good idea, or whether they will push through with this or not since one of the markets they're aiming for already expressed its plans to ban the app. As always, this has been the never-ending subtle attacks between two economic superpowers besting each other on even the littlest of things.

I have no idea whether Tiktok (ByteDance) will actually sell it to Microsoft but if it can be used to spy as Trump said then the more interested will Microsoft would be after its what they always do.  MS just love investing in projects that are dying. Once Tiktok is banned, it might just die too.


WeChat includes payment system which the Chinese living in US can use to sent elsewhere, they definitely will retaliate. 

Yeah, I thought they were only going to ban TikTok, didn’t know that WeChat was on the list. Those two are like the biggest Chinese-owned social media apps. Now that they have banned these Chinese apps/companies, are the Chinese going to retaliate in any other means??? Although I don’t think there is really anything they can do that will hit the US as hard as this one is going to hit them. They lost the US market, which is like the biggest market in the world.

I have been seeing some people who are arguing that there is nothing wrong with the TikTok app, because the thing they are doing is the same thing that Facebook and other platforms that are US-owned are doing, and apps like Facebook and Google are highly intrusive more than this TikTok and WeChat. Anyway, they just want information that belongs to their citizen to fall into the wrong hands I guess, and India has done the same thing and banned some of these Chinese apps. Mark seized this opportunity to create his Reels and is now worth around $100 billion.

If China doesn't want other countries apps even Google and facebook is not allowed in China but they expect all the other countries to use their apps and browsers, which isn't really fair right.I don't know the intention behind this ban but those things are right, tiktok is screening contents and also they are making the younger generation more addictive which is illegal in many countries but tiktok is featuring those contents.

Wechat and TikTok are both collateral damage here, Google and FaceBook are both guilty of data harvesting, the only thing I feel China has done wrong is the closed market it is practicing, if you ban other companies from your countries from doing business you don't need to be crying foul when you received the same treatment from others.

What Trump has done is nothing more than the continuation of a completely different policy towards China than the one that existed before. Those who follow this board know that India has done the same thing, with the difference that they banned as many as 59 Chinese apps. Conflicts between great powers have always existed, and what is actually changing is the way they play out - and now it is more than clear that the war has moved into the digital domain. As far as I am concerned, it is much better than a conventional war where people lose their lives, lose their property or become refugees.

On the other hand, if it turns out to be true that some US companies really want to buy these apps, then the policy directly helps to reduce the value of those companies before the sale happens. Again, from the position of a remote observer, I don't see much logic in banning such apps - except perhaps banning their use in places important to national security (security agencies, the Ministry of Defense, the White House).

The average Joe who uses TikTok at school, a fast food restaurant or in his apartment can't really endanger national security.

I suppose President Trump has valid reasons to ban Tiktok and WeChat and I guess its more about national security since its very obvious that China is exerting its influence over many aspects of society through these social media giants - and this is much like how China feels by banning Facebook and Google - which I think this is also a response in light related to these previous incidents.

My only concern is that the U.S may find having a hard time banning these companies totally as we all know some people may find a way circumvent it not unless the U.S. lays down solid technical infrastructure to fully enforce this ban order.

We all know that China has been banning giant apps like Facebook even before. So if China does it, the US can also do what they want especially if they are seeing that TikTok is a threat to their people. But if they keep on doing such an act, it won't stop and might cause a bigger issue between the two.

As I searched for information about this issue, they still have time to find someone who will buy TikTok before they will officially ban it in the US.  What I think is that a giant company will still end up buying it, since we are also aware that the app is so popular right now so they can't just let it be down.

Interesting, I thought I had last read that he was going to give Microsoft some time to possibly purchase the company before banning it.  I definitely don't support TikTok as I know it's used to steal a ton of information on it's users, but I'm not sure banning it was the right move.

China and the U.S. keep going back and forth, but we need each other in the end.

USA and China don't have good relationship for a long time now and this is not a surprise. However, it seems that Trump has its own funny way to.solve problems and this will only make harm to US and to its own IT and communivations industry, not to China, so I don't see the point.

Means that it's just equal and this executive orders from US Pres. Trump was already late.

Both leaders are showing their dominance, they are bringing things seriously a silent ways of saying that I'm not afraid and I'm willing to take you.

We don't know how far this two giant nations will go and how they will
move in the next coming days.

But how would you sanction China without harming your own economy?! China is becoming increasingly important as a huge sales market. A lot of products we are using are produced in China or use parts that are imported from China. That's downside of a globalized production and market. You become vulnerable to economic sanctions. But that counts for both sides.

I'm all for reprimanding China but Trumps explanation for targeting WeChat and TikTok is very hypocritical. I don't wanna know what private data Facebook and Google are collecting from us all over the world. There are many reasons why China should be sanctioned. Above all their treatment of the Uighurs (as a German it's chilling to see videos how they are blindfolded and taken away by train. But that doesn't belong here in this topic). To really hurt China, the world has to act together. It does not help if one country goes it alone. Just look how China reacted when Australia blamed them for the pandemic.

I don't even think that it can affect China's economy and also the economy of United States of America since people are only using it for entertainment and people in other places can download it for free and without the tax. Even though they are worrying about the security of their people, it would just damage their reputations as country but other countries with their own decisions would surely continue their transactions with countries like China and USA.

This is a shot in the arm because the Chinese government is now very likely to sign similar executive orders against American tech companies and this will mainly affect the world's most valuable company Apple. Those who own Apple shares should sell them directly and go short. Trump is thereby weakening the position of its own dominant IT industry. Basically those actions are right because China is a dictatorship, probably the biggest one mankind has ever seen, and it is necessary to take action against those regimes, but whether this is the right way forward is doubtful.

Meanwhile in China.

Social media app like Facebook has been banned for a long time, my Chinese cousin told me.

That's why they have their own messaging/social media like qq.

Even in the old times, China and US don't have any good relationship between them. Although they work together when it comes to the economy, but they have a serious conflict between some specific issues.

And now, they are expressing it by banning those foreign apps that is spreading in their country, especially Tiktok. There are a lot of users of Tiktok around the world but as there are rumors about its security and they say that the information are gathered in China so the privacy is not that safe.

That's the reason why US president Donald Trump pushes to ban this app to prevent and stop those China from benefiting US's economy.

There was a time when Android and many US companies backoff support a mobile phone giant, Huawei, the reason was because of the petition US government have against them that they are possibly helping to leak information from around the world including US for Chinese government. This was a great move by the US goverment.

The covid-19 pandemic is still even considered to be a artificially genetic modified virus which was produced from a laboratory from China. I consider this to be true as the virus later targetted USA. Now over 2.7 million people has contacted the disease in USA. It could be a weapon to reduce US power in the world by China.

Tiktok has now been considered a weapon by the US to leaking of information for China, I can not doubt this because China is doing everything to make sure to have the world power of which will not be good, a country that can sell to other countries and scattered all over the world to make progress but they do not make their country favorable for business from around the world, they did not support cryptocurrencies  but want to create their own digital yuan, they did not support social media from outside but they are making their own and their citizen have social media outside their country.

Donal Trump is right, they have to ban all Chinese company that they think could be providing information for Chinese goveremnts. Also, possibly WeChat could do that too and both have to banned from United States. The reason for the ban is because these social media apps are not trustworthy.

The phenomenon that the free market is getting away from America. Trump is a nationalist and Trump imitates China's strategy when protecting private Chinese from the onslaught of foreign platforms. Where China created and raised the Chinese version of the platform, including; Alibaba is China's Amazon, Wechat is China's WA, QQ is China's Gmail, Weibo is China's Twitter, Renren is China's FB, and apps like Baidu, Didi Chuxing, Baike, Nice and Youku. With the protection of the private state, China does not need to compete with foreign products, which in the end, even though they belong to the nationality, are owned by foreigners (happened in my country)

Trump as a nationalist sees that a large number of active users of Tik Tok around the world with a large capitalization is a national threat for America because it is global. Trump is trying to control globalists through pressure to divest and create similar applications. Will this Trump strategy reverse the habit of "oligarchs controlling government officials", becoming a state controlling oligarchs. National Threat is the reason that allows Trump to control Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok.

Just a superficial order to please some voters. The US economy wouldn´t work without the cooperation with Chinese companies. The world has come closer and closer and so did global economic collaboration. Eventually money rules the world and politicians are just there to keep things as they are and put on a show for the public to make the deals less obvious

The ban on Chinese apps is sort of a retaliatory attack by the Trump administration. For years China has been censoring the internet within the region through their Great Fire Wall (GFW), totally or partially restricting access to certain very popular websites including;.
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Wikipedia
• Instagram
• Twitch
• Pinterest
• Amazon
• Quora
• Amazon
• Imgur
• WhatsApp, etcetera

You can find the full list here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China
While restricting access to these websites, China would launch an alternative to satisfy their citizen's demand, hence growing their social markets and controlling the Internet.
Google very recently shut down a program which they planned on running in China - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-08/google-scrapped-cloud-initiative-in-china-sensitive-markets the reason could be growing tensions between both regions.
The GFW is also regularly being updated to keep up with changing programs which may attempt to circumvent it.

Data is like the digital spoils of war conflict and everyone wants to own it, spy on it, and stop others from getting theirs.

It is just me who thinks that Trump is just making this excuse of "national emergency" to justify his executive order? I think he is over reacting and could really escalate things between the two countries which are already in the decline since the trade wars began.

And this could really start the next cold war, if haven't started it, but this time it is moving on the cyber space.

- Trump blames China for the corona virus
- Blocks wealthy Chinese from acquiring US companies
- The whole Huawei debacle

And now this one, it is really getting worst for Trump and his administrations image.

Right, Twitter expressed interest in buying TikTok's U.S. operations


Hah, you nail it, we don't know what's Trump agenda on China, but it's pretty obvious his sentiments against China. It's just the question on who is the likely President that will hate China even more, LOL. In other news,

"Gen z on their way to the White House when they find out trump is banning #TikTok"

https://twitter.com/treymarley22/status/1289456456631164930

Do not forget twitter, it joined the race too.
This guy doesn't care about Russia interfering with election since it is endorsing his re election, he doesn't care about the other US based companies and social media spying on everyone and the risk of being leaked to China.
In the other hand banning stupid things is always welcome.

And so the 'war' continues with China, as President Trumps signs executive orders banning Tiktok and WeChat.


https://www.zdnet.com/article/donald-trump-signs-executive-orders-banning-tiktok-and-wechat/

Lately we have some topics about this one and seems the community is divided. And it seems that Trump really take this "serious" threat from China. Let's see how Microsoft will react, they supposedly shows intention on buying TikTok.