WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, USA (AP) — Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is signing an executive order to keep TikTok operating in the country for another 75 days, to give his government more time to negotiate a deal that puts the social media platform under American ownership.
PUBLICIDAD
The Congress had ordered the platform to separate from China by January 19 or it would be banned in the United States for national security reasons, but Trump unilaterally acted to extend the deadline until this weekend while seeking to negotiate a deal to keep it operational. Trump has recently considered a series of offers from American companies looking to buy a stake in the popular social media site, but the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok and its closely guarded algorithm, has insisted that the platform is not for sale.
PUBLICIDAD
“My administration has been working very hard on an agreement to save TikTok, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump posted on his social network. “The deal requires more work to ensure that all necessary approvals are obtained, so I am signing an executive order to keep TikTok running for an additional 75 days.”
“We hope to work with TikTok and China to close the deal,” added the president.
TikTok, which has offices in Singapore and Los Angeles, has stated that it prioritizes user safety, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that the government of the Asian nation has never requested or will request companies to “collect or provide data, information, or intelligence” in foreign countries.
Trump’s delay in implementing the ban represents the second time he has temporarily blocked the 2024 law that banned the popular social video app after the deadline for ByteDance to divest it had passed. That law was passed with bipartisan support in Congress and unanimously confirmed by the Supreme Court, which stated that the ban was necessary for national security reasons.
If the extension keeps control of TikTok’s algorithm under ByteDance’s authority, those concerns about national security persist.
Chris Pierson, CEO of the cybersecurity and privacy protection platform BlackCloak, said that if the algorithm continues to be controlled by ByteDance, then it remains “controlled by a company that is in a foreign state-nation and adversary that could actually use that data for other purposes.”
“The main reason for all this is the control of data and the control of the algorithm,” Pierson pointed out, who worked on the Privacy Committee and the Cybersecurity Subcommittee of the Department of Homeland Security for over a decade. “If neither of those two things changes, then the underlying purpose has not changed, and the underlying risks that arise have not changed,” she added.
The Republican president’s executive orders have sparked over 130 lawsuits in just over two months in office, but his order to delay a ban on TikTok has barely caused a stir. None of those lawsuits challenge his temporary block on the law banning TikTok.
The law allows for a 90-day pause, but only if there is an agreement on the table and a formal notification to Congress. Alan Rozenshtein, adjunct law professor at the University of Minnesota, said that Trump’s actions so far violate the law.
Rozenshtein refuted Trump’s claim that delaying the ban is an “extension.”
“He is not extending anything. This is still just a unilateral declaration of non-enforcement,” he said. “All he is doing is saying he will not enforce the law for another 75 days. The law remains in effect. Companies are still violating it by providing services to TikTok.”
“The national security risks posed by TikTok persist under this extension,” he said.
The extension comes at a time when Americans are even more divided on what to do with TikTok than two years ago.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that approximately one-third of Americans said they supported a ban on TikTok, a decrease from 50% in March 2023. About one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage indicated they were unsure.
Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, approximately eight out of 10 mentioned concerns about user data security as an important factor in their decision, according to the report.
Terrell Wade, a comedian, actor, and content creator with 1.5 million followers on TikTok under the username @TheWadeEmpire, has been trying to increase his presence on other platforms since facing a ban threat in January.
“I’m glad there’s an extension, but to be honest, going through this process again feels a bit exhausting,” he said. “Every time a new deadline comes up, it starts to feel less like a real threat and more like background noise. That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring it, but it’s hard to keep reacting with the same urgency every time.”
He is maintaining his profile on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook in addition to TikTok.
“I just hope we get more clarity soon so that creators like me and consumers can focus on other things instead of the ‘what ifs’,” he said.