Trump says will ban TikTok amid pressure on Chinese owner to sell

[rooster59]

Trump says will ban TikTok amid pressure on Chinese owner to sell

By Echo Wang, Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson

 

FILE PHOTO: China and U.S. flags are seen near a TikTok logo in this illustration picture taken July 16, 2020. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration/File Photo

 

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday he would sign an executive order as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok in the United States, ratcheting up the pressure on the popular short-video app's Chinese owner to sell it.

 

The move would be the culmination of U.S. national security concerns over the safety of the personal data that TikTok handles. It would represent a major blow for TikTok's owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, which became one of only a handful of truly global Chinese conglomerates thanks to app's commercial success.

 

Trump's announcement followed frantic negotiations on Friday between the White House, ByteDance and potential buyers of TikTok, including Microsoft Corp. They failed to produce a deal that would result in the Chinese company shedding the app's U.S. operations, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks are expected to continue in the coming days.

 

While Microsoft already owns professional social media network LinkedIn, it would face fewer regulatory hurdles in acquiring TikTok than its more direct competitors, such as FaceBook Inc, one of the sources said.

 

But ByteDance's valuation expectations for TikTok of more than $50 billion, and its insistence on retaining a minority stake in the app complicated deal talks, another source said.

 

"Not the deal that you have been hearing about, that they are going to buy and sell... and Microsoft and another one. We are not an M&A (mergers and acquisitions) country,” Trump said.

 

It was not immediately clear what authority Trump had to ban TikTok, which has up to 80 million active monthly users in the United States. It was also not clear how the ban would be enforced and what legal challenges it would face.

 

ByteDance, Microsoft and the U.S. Treasury Department, which chairs the government panel that has been reviewing ByteDance's ownership of TikTok, declined to comment.

 

"While we do not comment on rumors or speculation, we are confident in the long-term success of TikTok," TikTok said in a statement.

 

As relations between the United States and China deteriorate over trade, Hong Kong’s autonomy, cyber security and the spread of the novel coronavirus, TikTok has emerged as a flashpoint in the dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

 

Last week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs unanimously passed a bill that would bar U.S. federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices. It will be taken up by the full Senate for a vote. The House of Representatives has already voted for a similar measure.

 

ByteDance has been considering a range of options for TikTok amid pressure from the United States to relinquish control of the app, which allows users to create short videos with special effects and has become wildly popular with U.S. teenagers.

ByteDance has received a proposal from some of its investors, including Sequoia and General Atlantic, to transfer majority ownership of TikTok to them, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The proposal values TikTok at about $50 billion, but some ByteDance executives believe the app is worth more than that.

 

ByteDance has also fielded acquisition interest in TikTok from other companies and investment firms, Reuters has reported.

 

ByteDance acquired Shanghai-based video app Musical.ly in a $1 billion deal in 2017 and relaunched it as TikTok the following year. ByteDance did not seek approval for the acquisition from CFIUS, which reviews deals for potential national security risks. Reuters reported last year that CFIUS had opened an investigation into TikTok.

 

The United States has been increasingly scrutinizing app developers over the personal data they handle, especially if some of it involves U.S. military or intelligence personnel. Ordering the divestment of TikTok would not be the first time the White House has taken action over such concerns.

 

Earlier this year, Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd sold Grindr LLC, a popular gay dating app it bought in 2016, for $620 million after being ordered by CFIUS to divest.

 

In 2018, CFIUS forced China's Ant Financial to scrap plans to buy MoneyGram International Inc over concerns about the safety of data that could identify U.S. citizens.

 

VALUABLE STARTUP

 

ByteDance was valued at as much as $140 billion earlier this year when one of its shareholders, Cheetah Mobile, sold a small stake in a private deal, Reuters has reported. The startup's investors include Japan's SoftBank Group Corp.

 

The bulk of ByteDance's revenue comes from advertising on apps under its Chinese operations including Douyin - a Chinese version of TikTok - and news aggregator app Jinri Toutiao, as well as video-streaming app Xigua and Pipixia, an app for jokes and humorous videos.

 

Some of the company's other overseas apps include work collaboration tool Lark and music streaming app Resso.

 

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer, a former Walt Disney Co executive, said in a blog post on Wednesday that the company was committed to following U.S. laws, and was allowing experts to observe its moderation policies and examine the code that drives its algorithms.

 

(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York and Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson in Washington, D.C.; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Diane Craft, Aurora Ellis, Daniel Wallis and William Mallard)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-08-01

 

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[johnray]

No one's listening Trump.  Stomp your feet more and hold your breath.  Who knows what color he will turn.

Edited August 1, 2020 by johnray

[Bluespunk]

32 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

It was not immediately clear what authority Trump had to ban TikTok, which has up to 80 million active monthly users in the United States. It was also not clear how the ban would be enforced and what legal challenges it would face.

That is trump’s specialty, saying he will act in a manner he has neither the authority or ability to do.  
 

All bluster, no substance. 

[keith101]

DISTRACT DISTRACT from the Corona Virus .

 

He is getting desperate now willing to do anything .

Edited August 1, 2020 by keith101

[simple1]

It was recently reported MicroSoft is in talks to buy TikTok, so what's trump up to?

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/microsoft-is-reportedly-in-talks-to-buy-social-app-tiktok.html

[Emdog]

Recall, if you can, when Republicans and Trump were all up in arms over the number of executive orders Obama gave and what a horrible overstep of authority that was and spelled doom for the republic. Compare "Donald Trump issued 175 executive orders between 2017 and 2020. ... Barack Obama issued 276 executive orders between 2009 and 2017."

At this rate, Donald would issue 476 in 8 years in office.

Hmmm

[tomazbodner]

What exact regulation/laws is Trump using to ban TikTok? I've never used the thing and don't intend to, so I'm just bystander in this case, but still... is everything National Security risk?

 

What happens if American companies start getting banned around the World for "national security", demanding they are sold to someone else? Imagine Google or Apple or Microsoft or Amazon being forced to sell? I'm not saying anyone has guts to do that, and US is already sanctioning countries who dared to tax their online monsters, which eventually the whole World will, at ever increasing rate.

 

I'm just asking which specific line in international law or even US law gives Trump the right to ban or force sale of foreign companies?

[fdsa]

17 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

is everything National Security risk?

Tiktok IS an National Security risk as it runs a proxy server on users' phones, allowing chinese hackers to hack anything while hiding their identities behind these users, i.e. using american IP addresses in their attacks.

 

 

  

17 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

What happens if American companies start getting banned around the World for "national security"

 

the world will become a much better place if all popular apps would stop stealing personal information in risk of being banned worldwide.

Edited August 1, 2020 by fdsa

[Morch]

1 hour ago, tomazbodner said:

What exact regulation/laws is Trump using to ban TikTok? I've never used the thing and don't intend to, so I'm just bystander in this case, but still... is everything National Security risk?

 

What happens if American companies start getting banned around the World for "national security", demanding they are sold to someone else? Imagine Google or Apple or Microsoft or Amazon being forced to sell? I'm not saying anyone has guts to do that, and US is already sanctioning countries who dared to tax their online monsters, which eventually the whole World will, at ever increasing rate.

 

I'm just asking which specific line in international law or even US law gives Trump the right to ban or force sale of foreign companies?

 

Several major apps and websites are banned in the PRC, or heavily monitored in Russia. Other, smaller countries have similar restrictions. So some markets are off limits (or very limited) to some American firms.  I don't know that such banning/monitoring is dependent on international law.

[AsiaCheese]

1 hour ago, fdsa said:

Tiktok IS an National Security risk as it runs a proxy server on users' phones, allowing chinese hackers to hack anything while hiding their identities behind these users, i.e. using american IP addresses in their attacks.

And your competent source for that would be?

[Eric Loh]

TikTok TikTok times out Trump. Leave by the backdoor and watch for the ricocheting door on the way out. 

[1FinickyOne]

wow.. riots in the streets, a killer virus and now they want to take away our breath mints!!

[tomazbodner]

1 hour ago, fdsa said:

Tiktok IS an National Security risk as it runs a proxy server on users' phones, allowing chinese hackers to hack anything while hiding their identities behind these users, i.e. using american IP addresses in their attacks.

 

 

  

 

the world will become a much better place if all popular apps would stop stealing personal information in risk of being banned worldwide.

Oh my God, really? That's very bad. Google would never do such a thing... Now sarcasm off.

 

I fully agree with you that the World would be a much better place with data mining gone. But it would go a long way if people stopped installing all the possible free <deleted> just because it's free. Nobody seems to be reading any of the agreements they accept, as long as it's free. And even, when it isn't.

 

I'm controlling what apps can access. Surely a calculator requires no access to camera or call history, SMS and phone book. Whatever makes no sense is turned off, and if app breaks or demands access before letting me use it, rubbish bin gets fed.

Edited August 1, 2020 by tomazbodner

[Tie Dye Samurai]

2 hours ago, tomazbodner said:

What exact regulation/laws is Trump using to ban TikTok?

The "Don't embarrass Trump into thinking his Tulsa Coronapalooza was going to have a packed house and only produced 6K" regulation

[fdsa]

2 hours ago, AsiaCheese said:

And your competent source for that would be?

https://www.google.com/search?q=tiktok+reverse+engineered+proxy+server&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab

 

1 hour ago, tomazbodner said:

I'm controlling what apps can access. Surely a calculator requires no access to camera or call history, SMS and phone book. Whatever makes no sense is turned off, and if app breaks or demands access before letting me use it, rubbish bin gets fed.

the fun part with Android is that it allows you to restrict anything only AFTER an app requested (and received) that access. you can not install an app and restrict everything _before_ you have opened that app.

I haven't read much about latest iOS privacy functions but they look very promising.

[Eric Loh]

25 minutes ago, fdsa said:

https://www.google.com/search?q=tiktok+reverse+engineered+proxy+server&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab

 

the fun part with Android is that it allows you to restrict anything only AFTER an app requested (and received) that access. you can not install an app and restrict everything _before_ you have opened that app.

I haven't read much about latest iOS privacy functions but they look very promising.

Sorry I don’t see much of evidence and this not peer reviewed by other developers. I will reserve my judgement if this just another political expediency. 

[opalred]

trump trying any direction to take the falures away from  attention /ban and close embassys /keep stiring  to find a platform for your election i know who will  china ./there are some grownups there

[Pravda]

I really enjoy watching booty on tiktok. Thank God I live in Thailand 

[rabas]

1 hour ago, Eric Loh said:

Sorry I don’t see much of evidence and this not peer reviewed by other developers. I will reserve my judgement if this just another political expediency. 

Peer review is a completely different world.  Facebook, Google, and Apple won't tell you anything, however, there is a vast hi-tech world and you can't hide anything from them. Especially open architecture apps. The problems with tic toc are well understood and are as bad as they say.

 

It's probably been reverse engineered many times, the guy in the news does it for a living.

 

Worse, it has taken over my household forcing me to become a tic-toc stage and lighting engineer. 

 

Edited August 1, 2020 by rabas

[rabas]

1 hour ago, Eric Loh said:

Sorry I don’t see much of evidence and this not peer reviewed by other developers. I will reserve my judgement if this just another political expediency. 

Who can you trust? The activist hacker group Anonymous. What do they say?

 

"A message posted by Anonymous through his Twitter account alerted users of the Tik Tok short video app after assuring that this was created to carry out massive espionage by the Chinese government, to what he suggested users delete it from their phones immediately."

 

 

https://www.web24.news/u/2020/07/the-reason-why-anonymous-asks-to-delete-the-tik-tok-application.html

[sammieuk1]

The Thai version of TikTock will never get banned just dug up occasionally ????

 

[scoupeo]

Trump is the best ! anything Chinese should be banned, including the chinese virus !

 

[Tie Dye Samurai]

2 hours ago, scoupeo said:

Trump is the best ! anything Chinese should be banned, including the chinese virus !

 

And with that piece of class style and dignity this thread should be closed...

[englishoak]

People dont look further than.. Trump says ..... tik tok isnt what it seems, nor is Hwawie or a good number of other Chinese state backed and infiltrated global businesses..China with absolutely zero enemies has nevertheless been building is modern military up for decades, it is reaching the peak of its power it will be allowed to get without conflict with other powers

 

Xi has with his stunning mismanagement and impatience woken the world up to China's expansionist plan, ts growing aggressive stance and threats globally.... it took Hitler 7 years to upset the world enough to finally do something. The Anglophere, Japan, India and now looks like Russia and many other nations are increasingly taking economic and military steps regarding China.

 

The war already began years ago way before Orange man bad came along. Its just people havnt been paying attention. Well the world is paying attention fast now its shut down and crippled everyone's lives, for a virus that kills less than TB or Malaria or Dengue and a host of other nasty things we live with....

 

Wake up  and get past the Trump derangement syndrome people. Trump or Biden or whoever wins will just continue the new global policy towards China whom is at war with the world and has been for years.  

 

[Scott]

Off-topic post and replies reported and removed.  

 

[englishoak]

China's still-largely-state-controlled corporate sector has enough exposure to the difficulty  of survival in the ultra-competitive, heavily scrutinized, anti-trust swamped world of big tech that the top management of Bytedance know that this kind of pressure is simply untenable and it didint take much more than a shove from Trump to get a move on for China to blink and fold its chips in on this round.  

 

China’s ByteDance has agreed to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok completely in a bid to save a deal with the White House, after President Donald Trump said on Friday he had decided to ban the popular short-video apphttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-bytedance-exclusive/exclusive-bytedance-offers-to-forgo-stake-in-tiktok-to-clinch-u-s-deal-sources-idUSKBN24X3SK

 

 

Edited August 1, 2020 by englishoak

[simple1]

In the OP trump claims the US is not an M&A country - surely that is a false claim? The OP also says legislation is being enacted to ban Federal employees from using the app on government provided devices, one would assume the ban could be extended to all US based people in law enforcement, military, police etc from using the ap. Forcing the sale of TikTok in the US would enrich Chinese investors. Accordingly trump admin proposed actions make no sense to me.

[rabas]

2 hours ago, simple1 said:

In the OP trump claims the US is not an M&A country - surely that is a false claim? The OP also says legislation is being enacted to ban Federal employees from using the app on government provided devices, one would assume the ban could be extended to all US based people in law enforcement, military, police etc from using the ap. Forcing the sale of TikTok in the US would enrich Chinese investors. Accordingly trump admin proposed actions make no sense to me.

You miss the point, it's all about spying. Preventing China, from stealing this:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-i321sihrM

https://youtu.be/KmaH4JsetCg

 

(skip to about 1:00 minute to get the most valuable secrets)

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by rabas

[FritsSikkink]

19 hours ago, fdsa said:

Tiktok IS an National Security risk as it runs a proxy server on users' phones, allowing chinese hackers to hack anything while hiding their identities behind these users, i.e. using american IP addresses in their attacks.

 

 

  

 

the world will become a much better place if all popular apps would stop stealing personal information in risk of being banned worldwide.

^{Apps stealing personal information? People put that information there and give consent.}

[fdsa]

1 hour ago, FritsSikkink said:

^{Apps stealing personal information? People put that information there and give consent.}

people do not explicitly "put there" their contact lists, contents of their SMS and email messages, list of installed applications on their phones, their Wi-Fi access point name and MAC address including all neighboring Wi-Fi access points, and so on.

if an app presents itself as "share your video with the world" but reveals as "share your private information with us" then it's malpractice at least and espionage at most.

Edited August 2, 2020 by fdsa