Trump Signs Executive Order Banning U.S. Financial Interactions with TikTok Parent ByteDance
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday banning any U.S. persons or entities from engaging in business with ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
The order states that 45 days from today, “any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with ByteDance Ltd. (a.k.a. Zìjié Tiàodòng), Beijing, China, or its subsidiaries, in which any such company has any interest,” will become illegal.
The order basically bans TikTok from the United States unless it is sold by its Chinese parent, ByteDance.
TikTok, although popular, has been identified by technology experts as a spyware tool that allows the Chinese government to gather tons of personal information from user’s phones. Congress has disallowed its use on government phones as have several U.S. companies.
The concern with the app is that there are next to zero privacy controls in China. Therefore, any data collected by TikTok was being funneled straight to Beijing for the CCP to interpret and use in order to shape social media propaganda campaigns it runs like the massive one it is running during the Coronavirus lockdowns.
TikTok is a hypnotically cute social media app that meant to appeal to those who prefer mindless, short content. And that stress-relief approach has allowed China to insert itself onto the phones of millions of Americans.
If you were designing a data-mining operation, wouldn’t you do it this way?
The executive order may be more intended to force TikTok to finalize its buyout by Microsoft sooner rather than later. Otherwise, it’s goodbye TikTok dances in the U.S.A.
