“TikTok is going to go dark,” commerce secretary warns as negotiations falter.

Donald Trump vowed to save TikTok before taking office, claiming only he could make a deal to keep the app operational in the US despite national security concerns.

But then, he put Vice President JD Vance in charge of the deal, and after months of negotiations, the US still doesn’t seem to have found terms for a sale that the Chinese government is willing to approve. Now, Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has confirmed that if China won’t approve the latest version of the deal—which could result in a buggy version of TikTok made just for the US—the administration is willing to shut down TikTok. And soon.

On Thursday, Lutnick told CNBC that TikTok would stop operating in the US if China and TikTok owner ByteDance won’t sell the app to buyers that Trump lined up, along with control over TikTok’s algorithm.

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Comments

  • 9tr6gyp3English
    5·
    1 year ago

    Um, he initiated the ban in his first term.

    So he wanted to ban it.
    Then vowed to save it before his second term.
    And is now going to ban it again.

    In 2020, the United States government announced that it was considering banning the Chinese social media platform TikTok upon a request from Donald Trump, the president of the United States, who viewed the app as a national security threat.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump–TikTok_controversy