Skip to main content

New story in Technology from Time: Trump Expected to Order China’s ByteDance to Sell TikTok in U.S.



President Donald Trump plans to announce a decision ordering China’s ByteDance Ltd. to divest its ownership of the popular U.S.-based music-video app TikTok, according to people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. has been investigating potential national security risks due to the company’s control of the app, and Trump’s decision could be announced as soon as Friday.

Spokespeople for the White House and Treasury Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A TikTok spokesperson couldn’t be reached for comment.

Snap Inc., a TikTok competitor, gained on the report, reflecting speculation that it may benefit from any move that weakens TikTok. Shares of the Santa Monica, California-based company were up 2 percent to $22.87 in New York.

Bytedance bought Musical.ly Inc. in 2017 and merged it with TikTok, creating a popular and fast-growing social media hit in the U.S — the first Chinese app to make such inroads.

As TikTok grew more popular, U.S. officials grew more concerned about the potential for the Chinese government to use the app to gain data on U.S. citizens. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which investigates overseas acquisition of U.S. businesses, began a review of the purchase in the fall of 2019, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

TikTok has become a political pawn between the U.S. and China, and elected officials have criticized the app’s security and privacy practices, suggesting that user data collected through the app might be shared with the Chinese government. Trump said earlier this month he was considering banning TikTok as a way to retaliate against China for its handling of the coronavirus.

TikTok critics and competitors have played up that fear, including Facebook Inc., which has criticized the app for alleged censorship.

Trump’s threat to ban TikTok came just a few weeks after reports that many TikTok users had tried to sabotage a Trump campaign rally by requesting tickets they never planned to use and coordinated a push to flood Trump’s 2020 campaign app with negative reviews.

TikTok has been looking for ways to distance itself from its Chinese ownership, seeking to reassure the public that no data is stored on servers in China and that the app operates independently. Bytedance even appointed a CEO formerly of Walt Disney Co, Kevin Mayer, to run its operations in America.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slashdot: AT&T Now Lets Customers Lock Down Account To Prevent SIM Swapping Attacks

AT&T Now Lets Customers Lock Down Account To Prevent SIM Swapping Attacks Published on July 02, 2025 at 01:30AM AT&T has launched a new Account Lock feature designed to protect customers from SIM swapping attacks. The security tool, available through the myAT&T app, prevents unauthorized changes to customer accounts including phone number transfers, SIM card changes, billing information updates, device upgrades, and modifications to authorized users. SIM swapping attacks occur when criminals obtain a victim's phone number through social engineering techniques, then intercept messages and calls to access two-factor authentication codes for sensitive accounts. The attacks have become increasingly common in recent years. AT&T began gradually rolling out Account Lock earlier this year, joining T-Mobile, Verizon, and Google Fi, which already offer similar fraud prevention features. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Post a Comment
Read more

Slashdot: Protecting 'Funko' Brand, AI-Powered 'BrandShield' Knocks Itch.io Offline After Questionable Registrar Communications

Protecting 'Funko' Brand, AI-Powered 'BrandShield' Knocks Itch.io Offline After Questionable Registrar Communications Published on December 16, 2024 at 01:04AM Launched in 2013, itch.io lets users host and sell indie video games online — now offering more than 200,000 — as well as other digital content like music and comics. But then someone uploaded a page based on a major videogame title, according to Game Rant. And somehow this provoked a series of overreactions and missteps that eventually knocked all of itch.io offline for several hours... The page was about the first release from game developer 10:10 — their game Funko Fusion, which features characters in the style of Funko's long-running pop-culture bobbleheads. As a major brand, Funko monitors the web with a "brand protection" partner (named BrandShield). Interestingly, BrandShield's SaaS product "leverages AI-driven online brand protection," according to their site, to "detect...
Post a Comment
Read more

Slashdot: Wells Fargo CEO Says More Job Cuts Coming at the Bank as AI Prompts 'Efficiency'

Wells Fargo CEO Says More Job Cuts Coming at the Bank as AI Prompts 'Efficiency' Published on December 11, 2025 at 12:15AM Wells Fargo expects more job cuts and higher severance costs in this quarter that ends in three weeks, bank CEO and President Charlie Scharf said Tuesday at an investors conference in New York. He's also betting on AI to drive efficiency and, eventually, further workforce reduction.From a report: "As we've gone through the budgeting process, and even pre AI, we do expect to have less people as we go into next year," Scharf said at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference in New York City. "We'll likely have more severance in the fourth quarter." The fourth quarter runs Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 for the San Francisco-basaed bank. Wells Fargo already has shrunk from 275,000 employees to about 210,000 since Scharf joined the bank in 2019 -- about a 24% decrease. Its largest employee base remains in Charlotte, with about 27...
Post a Comment
Read more