The United States will ban the use of WeChat on Sunday, and if certain safeguards are not in place the same could be said of TikTok by mid-November.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced Friday that access to TikTok could be possible beyond November 12th if certain safeguards are in place.
“At the President’s direction, we have taken significant action to combat China’s malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data, while promoting our national values, democratic rules-based norms, and aggressive enforcement of U.S. laws and regulations,” Ross said in a prepared statement.
President Donald Trump had previously said that TikTok could be banned in August due to “China’s malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data.”
People who use WeChat won’t be subject to penalties, according to government officials.
A number of American social media and tech giants have collected user data without much restriction for the better part of a decade. While criticism of those platforms – like Facebook and Twitter in recent months has been politically-specific – the fact is not changed that data collected on those platforms could be used in nefarious ways.
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