President Biden Signs Executive Order Revoking Trump-Era Ban on TikTok and WeChat

U.S. President Joe Biden has withdrawn a series of executive orders from his predecessor Donald Trump banning Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat in the United States.

tiktok logo
Trump signed several executive orders banning apps tied to China during his time in office. In the most high profile order, Trump sought a ban of the short-form video app TikTok, which is owned by Chinese firm Bytedance, in 2020.

However, Trump's bans were never enforced after several court orders blocked the restrictions, despite claims by the Trump administration that the apps posed a risk to national security.

Biden's new executive order revokes the WeChat and TikTok orders that Trump issued in August, which attempted to force ByteDance to divest TikTok to a U.S. company, along with another one that Trump signed in January which targeted several other messaging and financial transaction apps including Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Going forward, the Biden administration says it will instead take an "evidence-based approach" when reviewing the security concerns posed by apps. The U.S. Department of Commerce will be tasked with the job of reviewing apps developed by those "in the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary."

A separate US national security review of TikTok launched in late 2019 remains active, and an administration official has said that the White House remains "very concerned" about the data risks of TikTok users.

Biden's order says collecting of data from Americans "threatens to provide foreign adversaries with access to that information," and directs the Commerce Department to continually evaluate any transactions that "pose an undue risk of catastrophic effects on the security or resiliency of the critical infrastructure or digital economy of the United States."

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Top Rated Comments

Kylo83 Avatar
53 months ago

Finally, someone in charge using common sense.
thats gotta be the funniest line ive ever heard
Score: 66 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MRrainer Avatar
53 months ago
As with many things, Trump did the right thing but communicated... poorly.

He was his own worst enemy.

These privacy-invading, data-slurping hell-hole-apps have no place on anybody's phones - regardless if the users find the content amusing or are even earning money from them.
The problem, of course, was always that the data went to China instead of the CIA^wFacebook.
Score: 58 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kylo83 Avatar
53 months ago

When one is easily amused, one finds humor everywhere.

Biden’s still got higher ratings than Trump ever did. And we’re no longer faced with waking up to find out “what dumb thing did Trump tweet today?”

I’m no fan on the apps in question, nor of the Chinese government, but I do question the rationale of Trump’s bad other than “China bad”.
Good luck with the border and gas prices and everything, if you think Biden is better then we’ll I can’t continue, trump done more good for america than Biden and the extreme democrats ever will
Score: 53 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kylo83 Avatar
53 months ago

dunno i mean stop the steal is absolutely hilarious.
Yeah and a summer of riots and burning down cities promoted by the left is ok lol bye bye
Score: 40 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Radeon85 Avatar
53 months ago
Finally, someone in charge using common sense.
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Hastings101 Avatar
53 months ago
I will not miss Trump, but I’ll miss his stance on China. I’m sure this is only the beginning of Biden returning the US to the status quo of letting China suck up every bit of wealth and information it can from the West with minimal consequence.

Thanks Nixon
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)