President Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order revoking an order aiming to ban TikTok, a popular social media app as well as WeChat and several other apps from then-President Donald Trump. The new order from Biden is now calling for a broad review of foreign-owned applications from sources such as the secretary of commerce, the director of national intelligence, and other agencies. They have been tasked to provide reports to the president about the potential risk of such apps being posed to personal data national security. The White House did release an official statement saying, “The Biden Administration is committed to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet; protecting human rights online and offline; and supporting a vibrant, global digital economy.” The Department of Commerce will also mention and recommend additional steps that should be taken on top of this as well.
If this ban seems familiar, it’s because it is. Back in August 2020, then President Donald Trump issued an executive order barring the United States from doing business with ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. The administration ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok, setting the deadline to around September 2020 to divest to an American company, but never enforced the deadline nor the ban. The order ended up facing immediate charges legally and the ban was never instituted as a result. This isn’t the first time to hear about TikTok and its ban, and it won’t certainly be the last.
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This article originally posted on GREY Journal.
