WASHINGTON: The United States will be banning Chinese-video sharing app Tik Tok, said President Donald Trump on Friday (local time), amidst rising tensions between Beijing and Washington on a range of issues.
“As far as Tik Tok is concerned we are banning them from the United States. Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that,” Trump told the reporters while flying on Air Force One.He said he will act “as soon as Saturday” to ban Chinese-owned video platform in the US over “security fears”, Sputnik reported.Before boarding the plane, Trump told reporters that the US is mulling to ban Tik Tok, owned by Chinese company Byte dance.In June, it was reported that Tik Tok users sabotaged Trump’s Tulsa rally by registering for tickets to the Trump rally and didn’t show up.While Trump had bragged that over 1,00,000 supporters would come, fewer than 6,200 people should up to an arena with 19,200 seats.Earlier in July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration was considering a ban on access to the TikTok application over privacy concerns.The US politicians have repeatedly criticised TikTok, owned by Beijing-based startup ByteDance, of being a threat to national security because of its ties to China.Earlier this month, expressing concern over TikTok’s censorship of user content to advance the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) foreign policy aims, a set of 25 US Congressmen and Congresswomen urged Trump to “take decisive action to protect the American people’s privacy and safety”.China and US are at loggerhead on the variety of issues including Hong Kong national security law, South China Sea, Coronavirus and trade.In June, India had banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including TikTok, WeChat, and Helo with a view of the threat to the nation’s sovereignty and security.
