How Joe Biden’s order could be bad news for TikTok
0Reported today on The Verge
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Reported today in The Verge.
How Joe Biden's order could be bad news for TikTok
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Last summer, former President Trump cast TikTok as the mascot for the US's growing concerns over China when he signed a series of executive orders to erase the popular short video platform off app stores. It set off a wave of lawsuits keeping the orders from going into effect but left the door open for a future administration to take more serious action.
That's what President Joe Biden did Wednesday when he signed his own order revoking these Trump-era bans and beginning the process to set new rules for software tied to the Chinese government. Biden's order laid out a fresh framework for identifying the actual national security risks posed by these apps - a stark contrast with the chaos spurred on by Trump's individual bans.
Over the last few days, the Biden administration has ramped up on action against China. The White House is sensitive about appearing soft on China policy compared Trump, and action against the US adversary has broadly seen bipartisan support.
But in some ways, the Biden order could pose a more significant threat to TikTok and other apps with purported ties to the Chinese government. In contrast with Trump's sweeping bans, the Biden order creates a system for evaluating a slew of foreign-owned apps and recommending more intensive action. The Trump-era bans haven't held up because of ongoing court challenges, but this new process could provide new evidence to make it easier for future bans to take effect.
"This is the White House trying to come up with a clever solution that they believe is more defensible in cour