President Trump backs up threat to ban TikTok with Thursday executive order

President Donald Trump backed up his threat Thursday night to ban TikTok in the United States.

The White House released an executive order signed by Trump to ban the app in 45 days if it is not sold.

Trump had previously stated that he would use an executive order to ban the popular video app.

The order states that “TikTok, a video-sharing mobile application owned by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

In a second executive order that quickly followed, Trump banned financial transactions with WeChat.

“WeChat, a messaging, social media, and electronic payment application owned by the Chinese company Tencent Holdings Ltd., reportedly has over one billion users worldwide, including users in the United States. Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users.”

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