President Biden revoked Trump's orders on TikTok and WeChat
President Biden has just cancelled part of the former President Trump’s efforts to delist TikTok and WeChat. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Biden revoked Trump's executive order, which would ban...
29/07/2021
President Biden has just cancelled part of the former President Trump’s efforts to delist TikTok and WeChat. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Biden revoked Trump's executive order, which would ban TikTok and WeChat downloads, as well as other restrictions. These have been blocked by the ban, but now with the actions of the current president, they are no longer on the negotiating table.
This doesn't mean either app will avoid scrutiny, however. Biden has signed a new order requiring security reviews of TikTok, WeChat, and other apps developed or supplied by people living under the jurisdiction of a "foreign adversary," including China. The move sets out guidelines for "evidence-based" analysis of apps to determine if their data management practices represent too much of a risk.
TikTok also faces a separate government panel review handling international transactions.
Trump issued the first two orders in August 2020. The crackdown against TikTok in particular was ostensibly due to ongoing worries that it might hand user data to the Chinese government, but critics also noted that it came roughly a month after TikTok users allegedly wrecked Trump's Tulsa rally by making it look like there would be many more attendees than actually came. There were concerns Trump was using the orders as retaliation for being humiliated, even though TikTok itself wasn't responsible.
At present, many of Trump's efforts have failed in the months after he lost the 2020 election. In addition to the ban, Trump's attempt to forcefully sell TikTok to Oracle and Wal-Mart was put on hold indefinitely in February after months of delay. Biden's revocation and the new order effectively erased the traces left by Trump in the TikTok campaign.