Heads up: TikTok might get banned in the United States, which means your favorite TikTok stars could stop serving you your dose of food hacks and dance moves.
Rumors of a TikTok ban are equal parts highly political and highly confusing, so we’re breaking it down for you here.
U.S. President Donald Trump is banning TikTok to "punish" China.
Which, WTF. “It’s something we’re looking at, yes,” Trump said. “It’s a big business. Look, what happened with China with this virus, what they’ve done to this country and to the entire world is disgraceful.”
“We’re gonna keep looking at TikTok; we’re thinking about making a decision because there’s no question what the Big Tech companies are doing is very bad,” he later said, confirming everyone’s worst fears.
In other words, Trump is blaming China for the coronavirus and his subsequent plummeting poll numbers and wants to retaliate by banning a Chinese business. And yeah, people have feelings—especially given that TikTok users just trolled Trump at his campaign event:
Read more TikTok stories here!
There are concerns over TikTok's data-collecting policies.
According to Bloomberg and the New York Times, there’s a valid concern that the app is collecting information from children under the age of 13 without parental permission—which would be in violation of U.S. privacy laws. On top of that, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo recently claimed officials were considering banning the app to protect Americans’ private data.
Pompeo also straight-up said that Americans shouldn’t download the app if they don’t want their private info to fall “in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”
So, is TikTok collecting data? Not according to a company spokesperson, who said, “TikTok is led by an American CEO, with hundreds of employees and key leaders across safety, security, product, and public policy here in the U.S. We have never provided user data to the Chinese government nor would we do so if asked.”
On Thursday, August 6, Trump ordered a sweeping but unspecified ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of TikTok and WeChat, although it remains unclear if he has the legal authority to actually ban the apps from the U.S. The twin executive orders issued—one for each app—take effect in 45 days.
Earlier in the week, Trump threatened a deadline of September 15 to "close down" TikTok unless Microsoft or another company acquires it, a threat the new executive order appears to formalize. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced an expansion of the U.S. crackdown on Chinese technology to include barring Chinese apps from U.S. app stores, citing alleged security threats and calling out TikTok and WeChat by name.
But here's the catch: "If the goal is to get teenagers to stop using TikTok, I'm not sure an executive order will stop them," said Kirsten Martin, a professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame. "Every teenager knows how to use a VPN (a virtual private network). They will just pretend they are in Canada."
Read more TikTok stories here!
FYI, India has already banned TikTok.
This is a huge deal, not only because it sets the stage for other countries to potentially follow suit but also because—according to The Verge—30 percent of TikTok downloads came from India in April alone. The country justified the ban by claiming TikTok “engaged in activities…prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India,” but the BBC reports that there’s more to the story. Apparently, just two weeks before India’s TikTok ban, a skirmish broke out on India’s border with China, which left 20 Indian soldiers dead. The two countries have often clashed over their shared border for decades.
So where does that leave TikTok’s presence in the United States? Unclear. But there’s no denying that everyone’s favorite lockdown app is extremely politicized and caught up in what’s essentially a technology war between China and the United States.
As Forbes writer Zak Doffman puts it, “Yes, there are security concerns behind the scenes, but commercial, economic, and political concerns trump those.” Emphasis on “trump,” ahem.
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This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.com. Minor edits have been made by the Cosmo.ph editors.
* With additional reporting from The Associated Press.