An executive order was issued on Friday, August 14, by President trump giving Chinese firm ByteDance 90 days to either sell or spin-off its TikTok business in US.
“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” Trump wrote in the order, which references national security concerns. ByteDance is based in China, and the Trump administration has recently accused the company of sharing American users’ personal data to the Chinese government. The company has denied the allegations.
The latest orders by US government requires ByteDance to destroy all TikTok data of American Users and TikTok’s predecessor app Musical.ly, which was acquired by ByteDance in 2019.
The Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has revealed the intention of the company to purchase the US business of ByteDance’s TikTok, he even discussed it with the US president. A few days ago, reports also surfaced TikTok having preliminary discussion with Twitter for a possible merger.
The wildly popular app TikTok has received much flak from all over the world with countries doubting app’s privacy policy. TikTok was banned by Indian government, allude to national security and user privacy concerns.
