After Year Of Trump-related Turmoil, Biden Says TikTok Is Safe For Now

Joe Biden issued an executive order yesterday rescinding Donald Trump's ban of TikTok in the U.S., which was an ongoing battle last year that never amounted to TikTok getting banned at all.

In a statement, the Biden White House wrote that they would be conducting an analysis of all apps produced by foreign powers to see if they posed an undue risk to national security.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- White House drops Trump's attempted bans of TikTok, other China-owned apps; Biden team to conduct its own review of apps.

— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) June 9, 2021

Last year, the Trump administration made headlines as it pushed to get TikTok banned in the U.S. on the suspicion that the app was giving away user information to the Chinese Communist Party. India put a ban into effect last summer, and while TikTok insisted that such suspicions were unfounded, U.S. politicians on both sides expressed concern about the app.

Trump signed an executive order in August 2020 that would ban all transactions with TikTok and WeChat, both owned by ByteDance, in 45 days unless an American company took over its U.S. operations.

Ultimately, TikTok entered some sort of relationship with California software company Oracle, in a move that led tech experts and journalists scratching their heads. It seems Oracle did not purchase the writes to rewrite any of ByteDance's code, leaving it unclear what role they were taking in TikTok's operations and if they were addressing the national security concerns posed by the app.

Despite their year on the edge, TikTok had a terrific 2020: the app boasts over 689 million users worldwide, and before the U.S. ban controversy, had 91.9 million users. in the states.