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US Lifted Ban from TikTok, and WeChat

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Blanche Harris

US President Joe Biden has withdrawn his predecessor Donald Trump’s order banning downloads of Chinese apps such as Tiktok and WeChat.

In a fact sheet released on Wednesday, the White House said President Biden has revoked three executive orders aimed at restricting transactions with Tiktok, WeChat, and eight other communication and finance technology software applications. Two of these are under litigation. According to the White House, Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to examine apps owned by Chinese companies by the U.S. Commerce Secretary to check whether they are likely to pose risks to U.S. data privacy or national security.

American Civil Liberties Union supported the verdict

The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the move, saying President Biden’s decision to revoke these executive orders of the Trump administration, which has clearly violated the First Amendment rights of Tiktok and WeChat users in the Us.

The U.S. administration has decided to review itself to identify national security threats related to these Chinese apps. A new White House executive order directed the Commerce Department to conduct a ‘proof-based’ analysis of transactions related to the Chinese-made, controlled, or supplied app. Officials are particularly concerned about apps that store people’s private data and have links to the Chinese military or intelligence activities.

The memo stated, “The Biden administration is devoted to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet.” “ Countries, including China, do not share these democratic values,”

According to senior U.S. administration officials, the department will also make recommendations on ways to better protect Americans’ genetic or private health information and address the dangers of some software apps associated with China or other opposing countries.

According to James Lewis, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Biden administration has not softened the government’s stance against China. However, the new order establishes much more specific criteria for assessing the risks posed by Tik Tok and other companies owned by foreign adversaries such as China.

“The current government is heading in the same direction as the Trump administration, but in some ways tougher, orderly, and well-implemented,” Mr. Lewis stated. He went on to say that Mr. Biden’s order was more powerful than the Trump-era directive because it was “coherent, not random.”

Christoph Hebeisen, director of security intelligence research at the mobile security firm Lookout, TikTok does not collect the same amount of data from its users as an American-owned behemoth like Facebook, but it can still be used to build a complete picture of a person’s activities and social contacts.

“People aren’t looking for big classified secrets,” Mr. Hebeisen explained. “It could be that mass collection of data and making something interesting out of it for interesting information on people of interest, or even people connected to people of interest.”

Donald Trump orders ban on apps

Trump tried to ban Tik Tok in mid-2020 but was banned by U.S. courts, and the issue of Tiktok disappeared from discussions because of the presidential election. The Decision by the Biden Administration reveals the current Us concern that a popular Chinese-linked app may have personal data from Americans.

The Trump administration assumed the role of a dealmaker. It stated that Tiktok could only keep its US operations if it sold itself to a US company and shed all Chinese-based infrastructure and ties. Oracle and Walmart won their bid to buy a stake in the company for an undisclosed sum after rushed bids and jockeying by tech titans. Mr. Trump then rejected the agreement negotiated by his administration.

With Mr. Trump’s election defeat, TikTok’s woes subsided. Though the company is still under scrutiny as a result of the Biden administration’s new executive order, analysts believe the company’s dramatic ups and downs will be significantly reduced.

Source: https://discussionstech.com/blog/us-lifted-ban-from-tiktok-and-wechat/

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Blanche Harris
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