Trump pushes back TikTok’s sell-by date for a third time : NPR
The Tiktok application logo appeared in Tokyo on September 28, 2020.
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Kiichiro Sato / AP
President Trump signed an executive decree Thursday by spending more time on the stopwatch for the popular short video application Tiktok, five months after the start date federal law The ban on the United States unless it is divided with its owner based in Beijing, Bytedance.
The order grants the company a 90 -day stay of the application of protecting Americans against applications controlled by foreign adversary Actthat the congress adopted with bipartite support last year and the former president Biden signed. He had to take effect in January.
The extension is Trump’s third buoy for the application since it was entered into office, ordering the Ministry of Justice not to take any application or impose penalties against any entity for non-compliance with the law.
In a statement Published online, Tiktok said he was “grateful to the leadership and support of President Trump to guarantee that Tiktok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million American companies that count on the platform.”
The executive decree comes following a meeting with high issues between us and Chinese officials in London last week when the two parties agreed on a framework To put the trade negotiations back on a standstill on the right track. Analysts claim that Tiktok’s fate is linked to the wider commercial ship.
The law requires that Tiktok, which, according to the company at the beginning of 2024, was used by more than half of Americans, should not be controlled by a company in China. The legislators feared that it was used to spy on or influence American users.
Tiktok fought the ban to the Supreme Court, calling it a violation of rights to freedom of expression – but the high court maintained the law.
The ban was to come into force on January 19, 2025, the day before Trump took office. Just before midnight on January 18, Tiktok started out and disappeared from application stores. The next morning, although he is still not in office, Trump promised that he would stop the application of the ban, and The application returned online.
The day of the inauguration, Trump signed a executive decree Effectively repel the start of the 75 -day ban and promise immunity for other technological companies that provide back services for application, such as Apple and Google, which offer it in their web stores.
In April, as the new deadline approaches, an agreement He seemed to take shape who would have given the majority participation in a consortium of American companies, allowing them to concede to the Tiktok algorithm. But The agreement collapsed After Trump slapped Heaven’s prices on China and dismissed the officials of the National Security Council, one of which was involved in the tiktok agreement. He granted the company another 75 -day stay, with an end date on June 19.
In an email at NPR, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy Liu Pengyu reiterated Beijing’s promise to manage “relevant questions” according to Chinese laws and regulations.
“The American party is expected to provide an open, fair, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for companies concerning the United States,” said Liu.
Some legal experts claim that Trump’s delays go back to the law prohibiting Tiktok, which allows a single extension of 90 days, but only if certain conditions are met, such as certifying the congress that a transfer of Bytedance is in motion.
Speaking before the last promise of an extension, Ryan Calo, professor at the law faculty of the University of Washington who follows technology, says that Trump has worked outside the statutory framework so far.
“This president does not work in the intention of the congress,” he said. “This establishes a bad precedent, in which the president has the impression that he can simply ignore a status of the congress.”
The vice-president of the senatorial intelligence committee, Mark R. Warner (D-VA), published a statement accusing the Trump administration of “flouting the law and ignoring its own national security conclusions” on the risks posed by a Tiktok controlled by Chinese. “A decree cannot bypass the law, but that’s exactly what the president tries to do.”
The White House has not returned to request for comments on the legal reasons for these extensions.
For his part, Trump maintains that he operates within the limits of the law. Asked Tuesday if he had the legal basis to prolong the stay, Trump told journalists traveling with him on Air Force One: “Yeah, of course. Yes, we do.”
Moves by Trump and his administration to Ensure Tiktok and its service providers That the American authorities will not pursue anyone under sufficient law for the popular application to remain online. Apple and Google restored Tiktok in their application stores in February.
Calo says that these companies are in danger because “each company that helps to bring Tiktok to the Americans technically violates an act of Congress at the moment and has been for months”.
“They take a risk by continuing to support Tiktok on the force of the commitment of this president that he is not going to continue, because he does not say that, you know, the people who help Tiktok are to be won,” said Calo. Although Trump January executive decree Said that the Ministry of Justice “will not take any measure” to enforce the prohibition or administer sanctions, he says, “there is no guarantee”.
Apple and Google did not answer questions sent by email to Trump’s problems for Tiktok.
Apple and Google are financial supporters of NPR.
