Biden Dumps Plan To Ban TikTok… But Plans A Security Review Instead

Here’s the good news if you are TikTok. Biden isn’t going to ban you. Here’s the bad news. You’re getting a review along with any other app that is tied to a country that the US doesn’t like:

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat. In place of the Trump order, Biden will direct the commerce secretary to investigate apps with ties to foreign adversaries that may pose a risk to American data privacy or national security.

And:

Wednesday’s order calls on the Commerce Department and other federal agencies to work together to craft recommendations to protect against the collection, sale, and transfer of sensitive US consumer data to foreign adversaries. The Commerce Department is expected to then make recommendations for future executive actions or legislation to address these concerns.

But there’s a catch:

Still, the order does not address actions or investigations taken by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS. Under the Trump administration, CFIUS set several deadlines for apps like TikTok to divest itself from its Chinese owner ByteDance. For several months, Oracle was reportedly set to purchase TikTok in order to stave off the former administration’s ban, although the deal never came to fruition.

“The CFIUS action remains under active discussion by the US government,” a senior administration official said Wednesday.

This should be interesting to watch.

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