TikTok users, you've been warned!
It's official! President Trump just signed the "Executive Order on Addressing the Threat Posed by TikTok." The document essentially gives TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, 45 days to transfer the popular social media platform to a U.S. company that can meet security regulations or be banned in its entirety.
Citing security concerns and similar actions in other countries, the order states:
"TikTok, a video-sharing mobile application owned by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., has reportedly been downloaded over 175 million times in the United States and over one billion times globally. TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories."
What does this mean for the millions of American users? In a nutshell, we'll have to wait and see. The way the order is worded, if TikTok remains under the ownership by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, it will be banned in the United States.
The beauty of TikTok is that it gives creators a place to post short, concise videos that can be shared easily through other social media like Instagram or Facebook Messenger. Its popularity is pretty much universal, with both kids and parents getting behind the camera to post their own content.
Needless to say, the TikTok community has been buzzing about this ever since the idea first surfaced. Some are starting to move their content to other platforms like Instagram and YouTube in an effort to maintain their enormous fan bases.
They are coming#tiktokban pic.twitter.com/hMpQfs7DZF
— Anna Adamczyk (@Sonic_9245) August 6, 2020
Millennials explaining to Gen Z kids that Tik Tok now has to go to the great social media farm in the sky with MySpace/Xanga/AIM/Vine #TikTokBanpic.twitter.com/TqIhaWNwNq
— Flex Luthor (@SirRantAndRave) August 1, 2020
For more information, you can read the full executive order here.
What are your thoughts on this potential TikTok ban? No big deal, or is your world crashing down around you? Let us know in the comments!
