Trump Says He Will ban TikTok in United States

• 08.01.2020, 10:24
•  America,  World

President Donald Trump told reporters that he plans to ban the TikTok app in the U.S. through executive authority while flying home from Florida on Friday evening, ABCNews reports.

"We're banning them from the United States," Trump said.

The app, which allows users to film and share short videos of themselves along to accompanying music, is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. The relationship has caused the Trump administration, as well as lawmakers across both aisles, to accuse the app of being a security threat.

The president said he would sign something as soon as Saturday. Trump called the decision "severance" and firmly rejected the reported spinoff deal involving Microsoft buying TikTok.

TikTok has an estimated 65 million to 80 million users in the United States.

Trump did not specify whether he was going to act through an executive order.

The president threatened to ban the app while speaking to reporters before leaving for Florida earlier in the day, but did not commit to any specific actions, saying, "We're looking at TikTok, we may be banning TikTok."

"We’ll see what happens, but we're looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok," he said.