[Reuters]President Donald Trump said on Friday he would sign an executive order as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok in the United States, ratcheting up the pressure on the popular short-video app’s Chinese owner to sell it. Trump’s announcement followed frantic negotiations on Friday between the White House, ByteDance and potential buyers of TikTok, including Microsoft Corp. It was not immediately clear what authority Trump had to ban TikTok, which has up to 80 million active monthly users in the United States. ByteDance, Microsoft and the US Treasury Department, which chairs the government panel that has been reviewing ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, declined to comment. “While we do not comment on rumours or speculation, we are confident in the long-term success of TikTok,” TikTok said in a statement.

Source: Standard Digital August 01, 2020 03:11 UTC