The US Commerce Department has issued a new order to block people in the US from downloading the popular video-sharing app TikTok as of September 20th, Reuters first reported Friday.
The full order was published by the Department of Commerce on Friday morning. “Any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with ByteDance Ltd,” the order reads, “shall be prohibited to the extent permitted under applicable law.” It is set to take effect on September 20th.
Over the last few weeks, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has been engaged in talks with US companies like Microsoft and Oracle to create a new company, TikTok Global, that would meet the Trump administration’s concerns over user data security. Earlier this month, President Trump sparked negotiations after calling for US TikTok operations to be shut down unless sold to a US company by September 15th. Microsoft has dropped out of the bidding, leaving Oracle and Walmart as the leading candidates to hold stake in the new TikTok company. Still, the administration has yet to strike a deal that meets all of its requirements.
Officials told Reuters that a Commerce Department rule banning US downloads of TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps like the messaging platform WeChat could be issued as early as Friday. That rule would reportedly go into effect Sunday, September 20th, banning new downloads of both WeChat and TikTok.
“We’ve already committed to unprecedented levels of additional transparency and accountability well beyond what other apps are willing to do, including third-party audits, verification of code security, and US government oversight of US data security,” TikTok said in a statement Friday. “We will continue to challenge the executive order, which was enacted without due process and threatens to deprive American people and small businesses across the US of a significant platform for both a voice and livelihoods.”
Reuters said that the administration’s ban would bar Apple and Google from offering any of these Chinese-owned apps in their app stores for US users. The tech companies would still be allowed to offer TikTok to users outside of the US. US-based companies would not be barred from conducting business with the Chinese-owned apps, like how Walmart and Starbucks allow users to make transactions through WeChat.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Reuters Friday, “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 U.S. laws and regulations.”
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Verge.
Updated 9/18/20 at 10:29AM ET: Included statement from TikTok.
Comments
This whole thing is so hilarious. I can’t work out if its a power play, some sort of miscalculated election tactic or just bloody-minded xenophobia.
By FlyLikeAMouse on 09.18.20 8:30am
It might be all 3. It’s certainly arisen from Trump’s malignant narcissism and how his feelings were hurt when TikTok users reserved tickets for an event and never showed up.
By barrynolette on 09.18.20 8:34am
200,000+ people have died, and counting…….no policy, no mask mandate, no acknowledgement that it’s not getting better, instead, all this idiot can think of is…. Let’s ban Tiktok cause it’s from China. SMFH, the entire Republican party is a Effing joke, everyone do yourself a favor and go vote, no matter what state you live it. Local elections are more important
By NAS81 on 09.18.20 9:56am
Considering China’s authoritarian control of their media and internet, especially banning almost everything outside of their borders, seems fair to do the same. But it certainly should be a low priority whilst we are in the middle of a pandemic.
By inteliboy on 09.18.20 10:42pm
I am not anywhere close to being a Trump defender, I have always – since the 1980’s – found him to be a pathetic human being. I am actively working to fight his re-election by making calls to people in swing states for Biden/Harris. I spend two hours a day on these calls.
That said, this didn’t start with Trump. The TikTok issue has been under consideration for some time by CFIUS, since last year.
We have a legitimate security issue with China, Chinese companies, and Chinese nationals, around national security since China issued its National laws passed from 2014 to 2017.
That is the trigger for all of this. We have exited numerous Chinese nationals from the US – academics, business people – who have been shown to be spying for the Chinese. And some who haven’t been proven to, but are legally required to spy by these laws. We have banned Huawei and ZTE. We forced the sale of Grindr to an American firm.
And it’s not just the US. Other countries are also taking action, most notably, but not exclusively, India.
So yeah, Trump is an ass-clown. But that isn’t the issue here. If you think this is about Trump and TikTok, you’re missing the point. Here are some links to learn more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Law?wprov=sfti1
https://thediplomat.com/2019/02/the-real-danger-of-chinas-national-intelligence-law/
https://www.lawfareblog.com/beijings-new-national-intelligence-law-defense-offense
By JFitzgerald on 09.18.20 11:03am
Good on you JFitzgerald for being intellectually honest! You can oppose the President’s re-election and still recognize that some things his administration does are in the best interests of the USA.
By derek.tonkin on 09.18.20 11:49am
Even a broken clock…
By GoodTroll on 09.18.20 12:00pm
Yes, one bigly, broken-ass clock that needs replacing, ASAP.
By Clovis1 on 09.19.20 2:42pm
…but Trump was president last year too so….
By dogboychi on 09.18.20 12:02pm
Yes, and … Trump is the least detail-oriented president in history. I seriously doubt he even knew TikTok was under review when that started, never mind directing such action.
No, this started with the US intelligence community. Guaranteed.
By JFitzgerald on 09.18.20 5:47pm
So, why is Trump and his family still doing business with and in China?
By BendersDafodil on 09.19.20 11:08am
The risk associated with China is related to critical infrastructure, technology transfer, "big data" Intel on our population – things like that.
Building a hotel in China, or buying consumer goods or commodities from China don’t represent risks we need to mitigate.
Do you see the difference? If Chinese intelligence has the ability to gather detailed data on 100 million Americans that is different from the Trump Organization licensing the name Trump for noodles or whatever.
By JFitzgerald on 09.19.20 7:40pm
If TikTok is such a security risk for the average American (I’m not talking about government employees), then why does Apple allow it in its secure walled garden?
By Darkness0690 on 09.18.20 12:27pm
Data involved in what the Department of Defense has vs what Apple has.
Amazon tells employees to delete TikTok:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/10/amazon-tells-employees-to-delete-tiktok-from-phones-citing-security-risks.html
Wells Fargo tells employees to delete TikTok:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/tech/tiktok-wells-fargo/index.html
DoD tells people to uninstall TikTok (2019)
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/dod-uninstall-tik-tok
The Army bans TikTok (2019)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/31/us-army-bans-tiktok-military-devices-signaling-growing-concern-about-apps-chinese-roots/
By PeteBeast on 09.18.20 1:26pm
I’m with you JFitzerald always on every China article.
People don’t understand Chinas intricate road & belt initiave and soft power influence tactic. Mao was already doing this when he took over control of China. The way he did it is to conquer hearts and minds of the villagers and slowly spread influence to the cities. China is doing the same under the Xi except "villagers" are third world countries that were colonized and raveged by the west and the "cities" are the west.
I hate the orange as much people in USA (hopefully if polls are not lying) but people can’t just go and say whatever he does is wrong. This issue was started by my one of my favorite presidents Obama. He started looking into China with their natural resource manipulation, currency manipulation, and ghost "gdp" rising cities.
Though I do believe trump is not doing this for strategic purpose or to benefit the people. He is always doing something to benefit himself and his homies.
By ksyndicate on 09.18.20 12:28pm
You make this sound incredibly spooky when it’s in fact the same thing major western powers have done for generations, historically with much more violent force involved.
This all seems like xenophobia plain and simple. I don’t love China (I don’t love any country) and it has severe faults (as does every country) but this is a bunch of handwringing over another country standing on the same stage, playing the same part, that the US has held exclusively for the last 30 years.
How is that when America’s film media is by far the most exported and watched internationally, when the world bank and other international institutions broker favorable deals to the US and Western Europe over the third world, when the US exerts military and covert pressure over the elections and leadership of nations worldwide, engages in warfare across every corner of the globe no one seems to blink, but when China strikes a few trade deals (which end up benefiting those smaller nations more than trade deals between themselves and western nations have) it’s time to launch into Cold War 2?
Americans can’t fathom why China doesn’t want to continue to engage in the current state of world trade where the deck is already stacked and the rules have already been written. When China makes trade deals it has to be out of a desire for global domination, it couldn’t possibly be out of a desire to create a trade ecosystem outside of the current hegemony.
Again I want to be clear I don’t like China as a state. You don’t have to spit out your list of China no nos you have stashed away. But let’s be honest about what this is all about. It’s not about any abuses China has committed, it’s about losing an absolute grasp on world hierarchy.
By Velvet_Spaceman on 09.18.20 5:42pm
What you’re engaging in is called "whataboutism" and it’s what the Soviet Union used to undermine the core arguments of the West against its totalitarianism.
I’m with everyone else here in saying I don’t like or trust Trump but the CCP (not the Chinese people) must be countered. Likewise the left (and I consider myself centre-left) have got to to stop doing authoritarian regimes’ work for them by constantly whatabouting when they do awful things.
The west has done terrible things in the past. No doubt. America has done terrible things and is doing terrible things right now. But I don’t quite know how to explain to you just how different it is when a Democracy does a terrible thing inadvertently through bad policy vs when a single party state does something terrible deliberately and centrally. This is the big difference between those states and liberal democracies. So often we hear "America did X" —America is a gigantic decentralised federal system with millions of good and bad actors. China isn’t. Iran isn’t. North Korea isn’t. And it’s the intangibility of that fact which makes it so easy for you to write a whataboutist rant and get upvotes for it, even though it’s completely wrongheaded.
I don’t think the President should single-handedly have the power to ban TikTok, but I do think there are good reasons to investigate it.
By enemastone on 09.18.20 8:17pm
If you believe the results of US policy are inadvertent then yes we certainly aren’t working from the same framework.
It’s not about whataboutism, it’s about avoiding selective critique and not jumping headlong into stupid standoffs over things all powerful states do (and frankly we do with greater effect and gusto.)
You think states shouldn’t exert control on outside peoples? Fantastic, so do I. So let’s do that work at home too, not just pass is off as though the Patriot Act (extended by the Democratic House and Republican Senate last year) is a fluke and the US totally didn’t mean to commit to wars that gave us control over oil production Europe is dependent on, or that Operation Condor and the fascist regimes we set up in the Southern Hemisphere were an oopsie.
It doesn’t matter if the US has the aesthetic (and increasingly only the aesthetic) of a democratic republic if the results are the same, if the harm caused at home and abroad is the same. When we aid in the genocide of Yemen those suffering it don’t feel better about it because at least we hold elections.
Both China and the US suck. They both do sucky things. If you wanna give the US brownie points for holding elections (inspite of the shape of its institutions assuring the same results regardless of how those elections go) cool, go for it. But don’t be selective about what neocolonialism is good or bad, what human rights abuses count or don’t count, and don’t find yourself aiding a useless campaign to heighten tensions amongst states that benefit no one.
By Velvet_Spaceman on 09.18.20 10:31pm
@Valvetspaceman
Not once I mentioned the Chinese people. So I am not sure how my comment is filled with xenophobia. It’s the CCP doing not the Chinese people…
The problem with your argument it is so strawman and filled with whataboutism.
Sure what about US neocolonism? There many atrocities that happened (school of the Americas) is one example. But we can also look at another nations in history.
Sure China gives favorable loans to third world nations but don’t you think there is a strategic point and the people of those nations are not going to be better off in long run.
I didn’t say USA is great nation. Far from it. We have many of our own problems but the thing is China has a power that is not unchecked by their people. If there is an ounce of dissent your ass in a gulag.
I am sure Donald wants this kind of power but the people here can rise up, respond at the polls, and go outside to fight the oppression and historically things changed. Albeit slowly and half assed but changed.
By ksyndicate on 09.19.20 12:35pm