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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

TikTok: Trump says he will ban Chinese video app in the US [bbc.com]

President Donald Trump has announced he is banning the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok in the US.

He told reporters he could sign an executive order as early as Saturday.

US security officials have expressed concern that the app, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, could be used to collect the personal data of Americans.

[...] Microsoft has reportedly been in talks to buy the app from ByteDance, but Mr Trump appeared to cast doubt that such a deal would be allowed to go through. If the deal went ahead reports say it would involve ByteDance shedding TikTok's US operations.

A TikTok-Microsoft Deal Might Solve Everything [bloomberg.com] (archive [archive.is])

On Friday, Bloomberg News reported [bloomberg.com] Trump plans to order ByteDance Ltd. to divest its ownership of TikTok. Then later in the afternoon, several media outlets reported [bloomberg.com] Microsoft Corp. is in talks to purchase TikTok's U.S. operations.

[...] There seem to be two active bidders for the app. One is Microsoft. As for the other, Reuters reported earlier this week that some of Bytedance's U.S investors [reuters.com] have proposed a bid for a majority stake of TikTok, valuing the company's non-China operations at $50 billion. The offer would be about 50 times TikTok's forecast sales of $1 billion this year, Reuters reported.

Previously: Bytedance: The World's Most Valuable Startup [soylentnews.org]
Lawmakers Ask US Intelligence to Assess If TikTok is a Security Threat [soylentnews.org]
TikTok and 53 Other iOS Apps Still Snoop Your Sensitive Clipboard Data [soylentnews.org]
India Bans TikTok, WeChat, and Other Chinese-Owned Apps [soylentnews.org]

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