The TikTok saga continues today, as the Chinese government has changed its rules on tech exports in a way that could outlaw the proposed TikTok sale to a US company.
China previously had rules banning the export of certain categories of technology to foreign countries, and it has now added to these in a way which seems intended to include TikTok …
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Microsoft originally emerged as the front runner looking to acquire TikTok before the Trump administration ban goes into effect (now November). Other companies like Google and Apple were rumored to have shown interest as well but now in a surprising turn of events, Walmart has announced that it is working with Microsoft on the acquisition.
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Analysis of the TikTok app revealed references to Chinese servers in the code, which was subsequently removed in an update.
Two security researchers have given very different perspectives on whether or not this raises any privacy concerns …
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TikTok owner ByteDance, and an alliance representing WeChat users, are both taking legal action to challenge the Trump app bans. Trump signed executive orders banning both TikTik and WeChat from the US.
Both are arguing that the executive orders are illegal, each claiming the bans violate constitutional rights …
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A database breach has exposed profile data for nearly 235 million users of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
The data appears to have been collected by a practice known as web-scraping, where a company accesses the web interface of a service and then collates data automatically …
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President Trump has signed a new executive order that gives China’s ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off the US TikTok business. In the order, Trump says that there is “credible evidence” that ByteDance “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
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With TikTok potentially facing a US ban, depending on whether or not a Microsoft acquisition goes through, a Facebook short videos feature has been spotted in testing.
TikTok is of course based on short, user-created videos. As a highly popular app in the US, its withdrawal from the country would leave a huge vacuum …
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The drama around TikTok’s fate in the United States continues to evolve. A new report from The Wall Street Journal today says that Twitter has held “preliminary talks” with TikTok about a potential “combination.” Despite these talks, Microsoft is still said to be the “front-runner” to acquire the company.
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The Trump administration’s crackdown on Chinese apps was further escalated yesterday with an executive order banning transactions with Tencent and TikTok owner ByteDance. That hasn’t gone down well, as TikTok threatens a legal challenge to the order, saying that it is unlawful.
The company said it was ‘shocked’ by the order, which shows ‘no adherence to the law’ …
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Following this week’s announcement that TikTok and other Chinese apps like WeChat would be banned from the United States, Donald Trump today signed an executive order to officially ban transactions with Chinese companies ByteDance and Tencent.
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Microsoft recently shared its efforts to acquire TikTok’s U.S. business in a public blog post. Then, President Trump officially confirmed the TikTok ban in the U.S. by September 15 if an acquisition isn’t approved. Apple was reportedly in the mix too but that was refuted. Now Microsoft is said to be considering buying all of TikTok’s global operations.
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After Trump announced that TikTok would be banned from the US unless it was bought by an American company, the White House has now said it wants to ‘clean’ Chinese apps from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
Apps like WeChat had previously been referenced but not directly threatened by the White House, but the administration is now seeking to block this and other Chinese apps from the US as part of a 5-point plan …
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Instagram is out today with a major new release that should crank up the competition between social media apps to another level. “Reels” is rolling out for Instagram users in 50 countries and is focused on entertaining short-form video just like TikTok.
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While Microsoft has made its attempt to acquire TikTok publicly known, Apple is also reportedly interested in the deal. According to a new report Axios, Apple has expressed “serious interest” in acquiring the short-form video sharing service.
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Fears have been raised that President Trump’s TikTok ruling – banning the app in the United States unless US operations are bought by an American company – could see China take revenge on Apple.
Two government-backed Chinese newspapers have both suggested that the White House ruling is unacceptable, and demands a response …
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As expected, President Trump has officially announced that the US will ban TikTok and other China-based apps/services like WeChat. In the case of TikTok, Microsoft is working on a potential deal that could see the service continue on but details will need to be nailed down in a matter of weeks. Trump also said that he wants to see the US Treasury take a cut that would amount to “a lot of money” if an acquisition goes through.
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News broke at the end of last week that President Trump was set to ban TikTok and force the sale of its US operations. Microsoft was named as an interested party but Trump didn’t like the idea initially. Now it looks like Trump may be open to entertaining a Microsoft acquisition after all while WeChat has been named as another Chinese app threatened to be banned.
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News has been building about the US looking into banning TikTok and today that’s come to a head. Reported by Bloomberg, President Trump is ready to force Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell off its US TikTok operations.
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Earlier this week, the White House suggested that it might declare TikTok a national security threat, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating that the administration was ‘looking at’ the possibility of banning the video sharing app from the US.
Experts have now weighed in on the question, concluding that it’s not a direct threat, but might be an indirect one …
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday raised the prospect of a US TikTok ban over concerns that the popular app may share data with the Chinese government, and the chances of that happening may be increased by a new development today …
The US is considering banning TikTok and other Chinese social media apps. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that the White House is ‘looking at’ the possibility.
Pompeo said that the US has already acted to protect its telecoms infrastructure, and wanted to make the right decision when it came to smartphones …
The Indian government has made a big move today in limiting the Chinese apps that are available in the country. In response to security and privacy concerns, 59 popular Chinese apps and services including TikTok, WeChat, and Weibo are no longer accessible in India.
Apple has reinforced its commitment to privacy with iOS 14, which includes new features to give users more control over what data each app has access to. One of these features is a new banner alert that lets users know if an app is pasting from the clipboard, and this is already exposing the behavior of some popular apps.
TikTok clone Zynn, which unexpectedly topped the App Store charts last month, has now been removed from both Apple and Google app stores after complaints of plagiarism and pyramid selling …