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Trump considers suspending enforcement of TikTok ban for 60-90 days: report

Trump considers suspending enforcement of TikTok ban for 60-90 days: report


Washington:

TikTok plans to shut down U.S. operations of its social media app used by 170 million Americans on Sunday, when a federal ban will take effect, barring a last-minute reprieve, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

The Washington Post reported that President-elect Donald Trump, whose term begins a day after the ban would begin, is considering issuing an executive order to suspend enforcement of a shutdown for 60 to 90 days. The newspaper did not say how Trump could do so legally.

The law signed in April calls for a ban on new TikTok downloads from the Apple or Google app stores if Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell the site.

In theory, users who have downloaded TikTok could still use the app, except that the law also prohibits American companies from providing services that allow it to be distributed, maintained or updated as of Sunday.

Trump’s transition team had no immediate comment. Trump has said he should have time after taking office to seek a “political resolution” to the issue.

“TikTok itself is a fantastic platform,” Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News on Wednesday. “We’re going to find a way to preserve it but protect people’s data.”

A White House official told Reuters on Wednesday that President Joe Biden has no plans to intervene to block a ban in his final days in office if the Supreme Court does not act, adding that Biden is legally unable to intervene without a plan. ByteDance’s credibility to get rid of TikTok.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey on Wednesday sought unanimous consent to extend the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok by 270 days, but Republican Sen. Tom Cotton blocked the proposal.

If banned, TikTok plans to have users who try to open the app see a pop-up message that will direct them to a website with information about the ban, the people said, requesting anonymity as the matter is not public.

“We are left in the dark. Basically, the platform is shut down,” TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court last week.

The company also plans to give users the option to download all their data so they can keep track of their personal information, sources said.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold the law and allow TikTok to be banned on Sunday, overturn the law, or pause the law to give the court more time to make a decision.

Shutting down TikTok in the U.S. could make it unavailable to users in many other countries, the company said in a court filing last month, because hundreds of service providers in the U.S. help make the platform available. for TikTok users around the world, and they couldn’t. You won’t do it anymore starting Sunday.

TikTok said in the court filing that an order was needed to “prevent disruption of services to tens of millions of TikTok users outside the United States.”

TikTok had said the bans would eventually make the app unusable, noting in the document that “data centers would almost certainly conclude that they can no longer store” TikTok code, content or data.

Sources said the shutdown is intended to protect TikTok’s service providers from legal liability and make it easier to resume operations if President-elect Donald Trump chooses to reverse any ban.

Closing these services does not require longer planning, one of the sources said, noting that most operations continue as normal as of this week. If the ban is later revoked, TikTok could restore service to U.S. users in a relatively short time, sources said.

TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

US technology publication The Information first reported the news late on Tuesday.

Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States.

President Joe Biden signed a law last April requiring ByteDance to sell its U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a nationwide ban. Last week, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold the law, despite calls from Trump and lawmakers to extend the deadline.

TikTok and ByteDance have sought, at a minimum, a delay in implementing the law, which they say violates the First Amendment protection of the United States Constitution against government restriction of free speech.

TikTok said in last month’s court filing that it estimated a third of its 170 million U.S. users would stop accessing the platform if the ban lasted a month.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated channel.)