MORE
DarylLawsonLive.com
The TikTok-Microsoft-Trump drama, explained
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/31/21350072/can-trump-ban-tiktok-microsoft-sale-bytedance-china-security-concerns
Trump says he isn’t banning the app — for now — because he’s open to having Microsoft buy it instead.
President Trump won’t try to ban TikTok in the US — at least for now. On Monday, he reversed his stance on the wildly popular video streaming app and said in a White House press briefing that instead of banning it, he would allow a US-based company to purchase the app.
“I don’t mind if — whether it is Microsoft or someone else — a big company, a secure company, a very American company, buys it,” said Trump about TikTok. Trump also warned that TikTok will be “out of business in the United States” by September 15 if the company doesn’t reach a deal to sell by then.
Though TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is best known as a place where teens share short, often lighthearted musical videos, it has become the center of geopolitical controversy between the US and China over technological power.
For months, Trump and other bipartisan politicians have periodically raised concerns about TikTok as a potential national security threat, worrying that the app’s Chinese parent company could censor content in the US or access American users’ sensitive data at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party.
The company has vehemently denied these accusations. But reports last year showed a lack of TikTok content about subjects controversial with the Chinese government — such as videos of the Hong Kong protests. These reports have fueled US government suspicions that the company is influenced by the Chinese government, particularly as China has been expanding its surveillance state in recent years and US-China diplomatic relations have become more strained.
Over the past few days, TikTok reentered the spotlight when Trump told reporters on Friday evening that he planned to ban t..
