Between losing the election to president-elect Joe Biden and accidentally booking a garden centre to hold a crucial press conference, it seems that the Trump administration has forgotten about its plans to ban TikTok over national security concerns.
Donald Trump had previously ordered a ban on new downloads of the viral video service on November 12 (AKA tomorrow), unless ByteDance (the company that owns TikTok) was purchased by a US firm. Despite this, TikTok says that it hasn’t heard from the US government in two months.
“TikTok has actively engaged with CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) in good faith to address its national security concerns, even as we disagree with its assessment,” TikTok said in a statement.
“In the nearly two months since the president gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to satisfy those concerns, we have offered detailed solutions to finalise that agreement but have received no substantive feedback on our extensive data privacy and security framework,” the platform explained.
Among the solutions was a deal between Bytedance and Oracle and Walmart. While details of the agreement are yet to be confirmed, the company added that it’s filed a court petition with the US Appeals Court to “defend our rights and those of our more than 1,500 employees in the US”.
Still, things are looking positive. Earlier this month, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the TikTok ban, after three TikTok stars sued the US government for putting their jobs at risk. As for Trump, I imagine him crying in the White House somewhere, like the big, narcissistic baby he is.