Soon TikTok will ban in the United States after India now the US is planning to ban TikTok, TikTok is a popular app owned by China’s ByteDance.
In an unusual turn of events, US President Donald Trump stated Friday the administration is banning TikTok hours after the reports of Microsoft getting TikTok’s US operations emerged.
Microsoft was obviously in the lead to acquire TikTok in the US, an order on which was set for Trump’s signature. But the ban would be a testimonial to the US’s government’s strict stance upon Chinese companies over the interests of surveillance.
“As far as TikTok is involved, we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump was quoted as stating in a Washington Post report. The US President was, however, first expected to sign an order that would force ByteDance to sell off the US operations of TikTok to an American company, according to Bloomberg quoting people familiar with the matter.
Among the companies offering to acquire TikTok, which is all the craze among millennials in the US, Microsoft was at the figure. The order, however, was subjected to several possibilities, including the fact that TikTok belongs to a Chinese company, the main reason behind the TikTok ban is China.
While Trump was supposed to make such progress in ending the current woes for TikTok and reducing the fears over national security, his administration was also told to be examining other ways.
One of the ways is an administrative order, which the US President Trump has the power to sign, to bar TikTok by categorizing it as a national security warning in the US. Trump’s Friday statement hints at the latter likelier than allowing Microsoft to buy TikTok in the US.
“Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that,” stated Trump while pointing to his powers in case of a national emergency.
The fate of TikTok in the US, where it has over 70 million current users, lives in jeopardy. If the US administration bans the Chinese-owned TikTok, it will also possibly put an end to the fears of tech companies that see TikTok as their competitor currently.
TikTok has enormous popularity, thanks to its short-form video remixing feature, as well as other video-related ones. While Facebook and Snapchat have proposed following these features, they were a no-go among TikTok users.
In India, it was only after TikTok was banned, top creators shifted to indigenous platforms, such as Roposo and Chingari, and Instagram. Rising to the occasion, Facebook also launched Reels, which is a TikTok-like feature combined within Instagram.
In the congressional antitrust conference earlier this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told TikTok is a rival to his social media company and that it is the most famous social media app currently.
Buying TikTok would make Microsoft level up itself upon the Big Tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet (Google), and Apple. Microsoft did not mention on the speculations, but TikTok told The Verge:
While we do not comment on rumors or speculation, we are sure of the long-term benefit of TikTok. Hundreds of millions of people come to TikTok for entertainment and relationship, including our community of creators and artists who are making livelihoods from the platform. We’re excited by their passion and creativity and assigned to guarding their privacy and safety as we stay working to bring joy to families and meaningful careers to those who perform on our platform.
