Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will ban the popular app TikTok from U.S. app stores, effective Sunday, September 20.
TikTok and WeChat will be removed from all US app stores from Sunday, according to a Trump executive order… https://t.co/0nPEvxjApn— Financial Times (@Financial Times) 1600429350.0
The order will also target WeChat, a Chinese social media app.
In the official press release, U.S. commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross said:
"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."
In early August, Trump said that TikTok would be banned from the U.S. unless an American company bought it within 90 days.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said TikTok could be a threat to national security and the Trump administration has not backed down from their claims of banning the app.
Oracle, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), and the Department of the Treasury have tentatively agreed to terms for Oracle to own the U.S. operations of TikTok. However, that has not stopped Trump from implementing the executive orders.
To date, TikTok has been downloaded over 41 million times in the United States alone. It is one of the most popular social media apps across the Google Play and Apple app stores.
Although TikTok will be removed from the app stores, if you already have it downloaded you will not lose access to it. However, U.S. phones will not receive updates for the app moving forward.