TikTok and WeChat have 45 days to find a buyer for their U.S. operations or the social media sites will be banned, according to a new executive order.
TikTok has 45 days from Thursday to find a buyer for its U. S. operations or the popular social media site will be banned, according to an executive order signed by President Trump on Thursday evening. He signed another order later that evening enacting a similar ban on WeChat, a social network, messaging platform, and forum for online payments. National security concerns have circled these platforms for months, due to both companies being owned by Chinese entities. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech company, which has joint ventures with state-run entities. WeChat is owned by Chinese tech company Tencent, which faces accusations of censoring private conversations. Both face accusations of censoring content that is politically undesirable for the Chinese Communist Party and sharing user data with the Chinese government. In regards to the accusations of censorship, and its associated risks, the executive order against TikTok states: TikTok also reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.
