Downloads of popular social media app TikTok and using messaging service WeChat, both based in China, will be prohibited from 20 September, the United States Department of Commerce said Friday.
A full ban on TikTok’s use would come into effect on 12 November in line with the 90-day deadline President Donald Trump set for its parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform.
Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said:
“Today’s actions prove once again that President Trump will do everything in his power to guarantee our national security and protect Americans from the threats of the Chinese Communist Party. At the President’s direction, we have taken significant action to combat China’s malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data, while promoting our national values, democratic rules-based norms, and aggressive enforcement of US laws and regulations.”
TikTok has between 80-100 million users in the US, whereas WeChat, owned by Tencent, has around 20 million users.
Photo by Hello I’m Nik on UnsplashIn the statement, the Department of Commerce said that from 20 September TikTok and WeChat would no longer be permitted on US app stores. Any service designed to enable the functioning of the app would also be prohibited.
The US government believes that user data stored by TikTok, such as location and personal information, could be accessed by the Chinese government, something the apps and the Chinese government deny.
TikTok says it stores its US data in the US and Singapore, adding that and has erected software barriers to ensure the information is kept separate from ByteDance’s data banks.
Beijing says that Trump’s offensive against TikTok is just the latest skirmish in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies and says a forced sale of the video-sharing app would breach World Trade Organization rules.
TikTok entered sale discussions with American companies such as Microsoft in the summer.
Trump signed the executive order on WeChat and TikTok on 6 August saying TikTok gathered swaths of information on its users in the US, which could allow the Chinese Communist Party to access “personal proprietary information.”
The data collection could allow “China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
With ByteDance coming under increased pressure from Washington to sell TikTok, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in late August tightened regulations on tech exports.
Friday’s announcement from the US Department of Commerce comes just days after California-bases software giant Oracle officially announced its agreement with China’s ByteDance to become partners in managing the TikTok social network in the US.
TikTok and WeChat have already been banned in India, which also has an ongoing diplomatic face-off with China. EFE-EPA
