Trump Bans TikTok And WeChat In The US—45 Days Deadline

US President Donald Trump has banned the operators of the social network TikTok and the Internet group Tencent, both of which come from China, from operating and marketing their services on the territory of the USA.

Basically, the US government is putting the pistol on the chest of Chinese companies: If their services are to continue to run in the large US market, the respective divisions must be sold to non-Chinese companies. The ordinance now signed by Trump sets a deadline of 45 days after which the ban on TikTok and the Tencent-operated messenger WeChat in the United States would take effect.

TikTok is operated by the Chinese company ByteDance. It is one of the fastest-growing social networks currently. It basically works on the basis of short video clips that users use to network with one another. The platform is extremely popular, especially with the youngest target groups. Most recently, Microsoft had positioned itself to take over at least parts of the service.

Protecting Help for Microsoft

With the presidential decree that has now been passed, things are developing positively, at least for the Redmond residents. Because the set deadline should strengthen Microsoft’s negotiating position and lower the price properly. Because if ByteDance doesn’t sell now, the US business would be completely void in mid-December. The current action of the US government is part of the trade conflict with China that has been going on for years. Huawei in particular has been the focus of the dispute so far, but there have also been effects on many other points. In many cases, however, it has been shown that the economic blockades that were often used in the past are no longer possible due to the enormous networking of the global economy. In particular, if you cut off the US economy from its relationships with Chinese companies, you also do massive damage to it.

However, there is another aspect with the companies now affected: As with all social media services, some very sensitive data about the interests and habits of users that are currently being collected and processed in repressive China are brought together here.