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Observers have also said that ByteDance's founder and CEO Zhang Yiming issued a letter in 2018 stating that his company would "further deepen cooperation" with the ruling Chinese Communist Party to promote its policies. They included armed forces personnel and its alleged ability to convey location, image and biometric data to its Chinese parent company, which is legally unable to refuse to share data with the Chinese government under the China Internet Security Law. In January 2019, an investigation by the American think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics described TikTok as a " Huawei-sized problem" that posed a national security threat to the West, because of the app's popularity with Western users. See also: Internet censorship in the United States technical program manager Patrick Ryan against Trump and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross sought a temporary restraining order (TRO), arguing that his due process rights were violated and the ban was an "unconstitutional taking" of Ryan's property under the Fifth Amendment the suit also claimed Trump's action was likely a retaliation because of the TikTok pranks targeting the June 20 campaign rally.Īmerican technology company Microsoft had previously proposed an idea to acquire TikTok's algorithm and other artificial intelligence technology, but this was declined by ByteDance, as its executives expressed concern that it would likely be opposed by the Chinese government, which criticized the Trump administration's order previously as a "smash and grab" forced sale and (on September 13, 2021) suggested it would prefer the shuttering of U.S.
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A separate suit filed the same day by TikTok's U.S.
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The lawsuit against the Trump administration's order was filed on August 24, and contended that the administration's order was motivated by Trump's efforts to boost re-election support through protectionist trade policies aimed at China. TikTok would later announce plans to file legal action challenging the order's transactional prohibitions with U.S. The result was that TikTok owner ByteDance-which initially planned on selling a small portion of TikTok to an American company-agreed to divest TikTok to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries where restrictions are also being considered due to privacy concerns, which themselves are mostly related to its ownership by a firm based in China. president Donald Trump, who viewed the app as a national security threat. government announced that it was considering banning the Chinese social media platform TikTok upon a request from then- U.S.
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