Biden’s election signaled the beginning of the end of the Trump TikTok ban. Word now is that the ban effort could be on hold.
Former president, Donald Trump, made it a key component to have TikTok banned from the US. It was a key pillar in his efforts to sow carnage and chaos throughout the world. Unfortunately for the psychotic administration, law and order got in the way of those efforts. Judges kept delaying the ban one after another. Apparently, it takes more than xenophobia to convince a judge that the ban is justified.
Of course, the effort stalled after Trump lost the election. After that happened, he lost all interest in the ban and defaulted to his usual attitude of only looking out for himself. His attention went from his heavy handed approach to TikTok to try and overturn the election results.
What followed was total radio silence. Trump was due to decide whether to approve or reject the TikTok Oracle Walmart deal. After blowing past that self-imposed deadline, the Trump administration quietly extended the deadline. That pattern would repeat again and again and again. The conclusion for many is that Trump had lost all focus on the TikTok ban and, instead, chose to focus all of his attention on overturning the election results – an effort that obviously proved futile even after he incited a terrorist attack on the Capitol buildings.
As Joe Biden was sworn in as the next president, many were speculating on what the administration would do for digital rights. While we issued multiple predictions at the time, two have, so far, come true (efforts to reinstate Network Neutrality and attacking Section 230), one prediction others were making before us was that Biden would drop the TikTok ban effort. That is ultimately proving to be reality these days. Reports are surfacing that suggests that Biden is heading in that direction already. From CP24:
The Biden administration is backing off former President Donald Trump’s attempts to ban the popular video app TikTok, asking a court to postpone a legal dispute over the proposed ban as the government begins a broader review of the national security threats posed by Chinese technology companies.
A court filing Wednesday said the U.S. Commerce Department is reviewing whether Trump’s claims about TikTok’s threat to national security justified the attempts to ban it from smartphone app stores and deny it vital technical services.
Separately, the Biden administration has “indefinitely” shelved a proposed U.S. takeover of TikTok, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Last year, the Trump administration brokered a deal that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in the Chinese-owned app on national-security grounds.
The unusual arrangement stemmed from a Trump executive order that aimed to ban TikTok in the U.S. unless it accepted a greater degree of American control.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not deny the Journal report, but said Wednesday the Biden administration hasn’t taken a “new proactive step” in the process.
Psaki added that the Biden administration is comprehensively evaluating risks to U.S. data, including those involving TikTok. A review of TikTok by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which considers national security implications of such investments, is ongoing, Psaki said. She didn’t offer a timetable for that process.
The news is likely to come to the relief of many TikTok users. Some users use the app to communicate to relatives overseas. If the US banned the app, that would cause a lot of disruption for them. In some cases, it might even mean that their one communication connection would be completely cut off.
Unless there is a surprise decision for Biden to continue the push to ban TikTok, it’s looking like this issue will finally die off and allow users to return to a sense of normalcy while using the app.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
