Trump signs executive orders to ban Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat from United States

President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Aug. 6, 2020, which enacted sweeping restrictions on both TikTok and WeChat, popular Chinese-owned social media apps. Trump’s orders, which represented a sharp escalation in already strained U.S. relations with China, cited national security concerns as justification. The executive orders would have entered into effect Sept. 20, 2020. Meanwhile, on Sept. 18, the Commerce Department announced it would ban downloads of both TikTok and WeChat beginning Sept. 20 and later postponed the date to Sept. 27. Ultimately, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking Trump’s ban on downloading the app.

Key Players

Donald Trump is the 45th president of the United States. His term, which began in January 2017, has been marked, in part, by open hostility toward social media companies and a tense relationship with China.

TikTok is a Chinese-owned video-sharing social networking app owned by ByteDance that was founded in 2012. Users can add filters, sound, and text to their videos. In the first quarter of 2020, TikTok was downloaded 315 million times, the highest recorded number of downloads for any app in a fiscal quarter.

WeChat is a popular Chinese-owned texting app developed by Tencent that maintains a small user base in the United States, according to The Verge. WeChat and Weixin — the Chinese version of WeChat — have more than 1.2 billion active monthly users. Chinese police have often used WeChat, which is heavily censored, to track dissidents of the regime, according to The New York Times.

Further Details

Trump first suggested he might ban TikTok July 7, 2020, when he stated that doing so would punish China for the international outbreak of the novel coronavirus, according to The New York Times. Just a day earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration was seriously considering a ban, noting that users’ data on TikTok might end up “in the hands of the Chinese Community Party.”

On July 31, Trump told reporters he would ban TikTok within 24 hours. On Aug. 2, Microsoft announced its plans to purchase TikTok’s operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, following a conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Trump.

Four days later, Trump issued executive orders “addressing the threat” posed by TikTok and WeChat, banning transactions by any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States with ByteDance and Tencent. Violations could carry fines of $300,000, according to NPR. The orders stated the spread of Chinese mobile applications “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” They further cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act as justification for issuing the ban, effectively designating TikTok’s operations in the United States as a national emergency, according to The Verge.

The ban aims to prevent Americans from accessing software and the content made available by that software, which raised First Amendment questions about the orders’ constitutionality. Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, stated the ban violated First Amendment rights “by subjecting [users] to civil and possibly criminal penalties for communicating with family members, friends, or business contacts,” The Verge reported.

The orders’ broad language caused widespread confusion when Trump first signed them. Both, for example, left the term “transaction” undefined, and because the ban was set to take effect 45 days after its announcement, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross had the authority to list specific violations and prohibitions until then. 

Additionally, the WeChat order technically banned interactions with Tencent, a holding company that also has direct partnerships with U.S. companies such as Starbucks, Visa, and Mastercard, according to The New York Times. Tencent is also the world’s largest video game company, owning at least part of Fortnite, League of Legends, Call of Duty, and a number of other popular games, Business Insider reported. At the time of the orders’ signing, confusion abounded as to whether one of them applied only to WeChat or to Tencent’s other operations as well. Los Angeles Times tech reporter Sam Dean clarified the uncertainty and confirmed the order only blocked transactions related to WeChat.

Outcomes

TikTok plans to sue the Trump administration amid personnel changes at the company

On Aug. 7, 2020, TikTok released a statement saying it was shocked by the executive order, which it believed to be issued “without any due process.” The next day, the company announced its intention to file a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration in California, where TikTok’s American operations are located. The lawsuit, filed Aug. 24, argued the order was unconstitutional because its national security justification was unfounded.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 26, Kevin Mayer — then chief executive of TikTok — resigned from the company because of “sustained pressure from the Trump administration over its ties to China,” according to The New York Times. As tensions between the United States and China ramped up, TikTok pointed to Mayer, an American, as proof that the company was not simply a tool of the Chinese government.

Microsoft plans to buy TikTok dashed by Oracle deal

In a blog post written Aug. 2, Microsoft announced it was seeking to buy TikTok to “ensure that all private data of TikTok’s American users is transferred to and remains in the United States,” echoing the Trump administration’s concerns about data on the app being exploited by the Chinese government. 

While Microsoft hoped to acquire TikTok by Sept. 15, just five days before the executive orders were slated to take effect, its bid was rejected Sept. 13, as TikTok instead chose Oracle, a California-based corporation specializing in enterprise software, to be its technology partner for U.S. operations, The New York Times reported. What exactly Oracle’s status as a “trusted tech partner” would look like was unclear, but Oracle was not likely to take over any significant operations, according to The Verge.

In all likelihood, Oracle will locate user data in the United States, but the company made no public comments about its plans for TikTok’s underlying technology, which The New York Times reported is written by a Chinese engineering team in Beijing and thus poses a major concern for U.S. intelligence agencies. By contrast, Microsoft had planned to take over TikTok’s computer code and artificial intelligence algorithm that determines what videos the 100 million American users of the app see, a move that would have nixed the deal for the Chinese government and ByteDance.

One factor that hurt Microsoft’s chances of a successful bid was the new regulations China issued in August requiring explicit permission from the Chinese government for TikTok to transfer its technology to a foreign buyer, The New York Times reported. Microsoft’s approach to TikTok, while favored by the U.S. National Security Agency and the Pentagon, did not satisfy the Chinese government, if its new regulations were any indication. 

Another hurdle was presidential approval, though Oracle, unlike other technology companies, has fostered close ties to the Trump administration. Cofounder Larry Ellison is one of the few Silicon Valley tech moguls who openly supports Trump, CNN reported. In addition to having hosted a Trump campaign fundraiser in February 2020, in April he joined a White House advisory committee focused on reviving the U.S. economy. The president said in August he would support Oracle buying TikTok, calling it a “great company” and suggesting it could run the app successfully, according to The New York Times.

Commerce Department’s plan to ban downloads of WeChat and TikTok averted after Trump approves deal to create U.S.-based TikTok subsidiary

On Sept. 18, the Trump administration advanced with its plan to ban WeChat and TikTok from American app stores. The Commerce Department announced that beginning two days later, it would prohibit downloads of both apps as well as ban transactions made through WeChat, in order to “safeguard the national security of the United States,” according to a statement by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Other restrictions on TikTok — including on internet hosting, content delivery networks, and code-sharing — were to take effect Nov. 12, nine days after the presidential election.

Users who already had TikTok downloaded on their phones were still to be able to use it and obtain any software updates, but beginning Sept. 20, the app was to be unavailable for download on the Apple and Google play stores. Without security updates and bug fixes, it may have eventually stopped functioning. Moreover, the ban could prevent American TikTok users from using the app alongside other users from across the globe, according to The New York Times.

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. government may be unable to prevent Americans from downloading the app from foreign app stores, so the effectiveness of the ban is unclear.

On Sept. 19, the Commerce Department delayed the prohibitions on TikTok by a week, so the ban on downloading the app would have taken effect Sept. 27.

On Sept. 20, Trump tentatively approved a deal that kept TikTok alive in the United States. It allowed Oracle and Walmart to join forces to create an entity called TikTok Global, whose headquarters will be in the United States. The deal pacified the White House and its concerns about American users’ data, according to NPR.

However, some experts in technology privacy doubt the deal would actually address the security concerns that lie at the heart of the White House’s qualms with TikTok. Chris Kelly, the former chief privacy officer at Facebook, noted ByteDance will still maintain its majority stake, so she argued that “the ability of the Chinese government to put pressure on the ByteDance company is still substantial.”

Federal judge blocks TikTok ban hours before it was set to take effect

On the night of Sept. 27 — just hours before Trump’s ban on downloading TikTok was set to take effect — Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction against Trump’s executive order and halted the ban, arguing that it infringed on Free Speech and due process rights, according to NPR. The injunction notably did not affect the broader set of restrictions on the app that take effect in November.

The Commerce Department wrote in a statement it would postpone its ban but would continue the legal battle against TikTok. Going forward, TikTok can now operate without interruption in the United States until a full court hearing, according to NPR.