<p>President Trump on Friday issued two executive orders that could affect Americans&#8217; ability to use Chinese-made social media apps TikTok and WeChat.</p>
<p>He ordered Chinese owner ByteDance to divest its U.S. Tiktok business within 90 days.</p>
<p>This follows a previous announcement established a 45-day deadline for an American company to purchase TikTok and restricts US residents&#8217; <span class="s1">transactions with WeChat.<br />
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<p>TikTok is a video-sharing app (owned by ByteDance) that came to the US in 2018. The app was introduced as a platform for music and goofy videos but has been criticized for censoring information related to China&#8217;s treatment of Muslims and Hong Kong. TikTok has an estimated 100 million monthly users in the US, most of them teens and young adults.</p>
<p>WeChat (owned by Tencent) is the primary payments provider and texting app in China, <span class="s1">and the new restrictions could have a significant effect on Chinese spending in the US and Chinese spending on American goods sold in China. </span><span class="s1">WeChat </span>has 1.2 billion users, most of them in China, but the app is also popular <span class="s1">among foreigners with professional or personal links to China. </span></p>
<p>President Trump&#8217;s executive orders targeting TikTok and WeChat are based on fears that Beijing could utilize the apps to spy on Americans and steal information.</p>
<p><span class="s1">“This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information &#8211; potentially allowing China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage,” reads the order.</span></p>
<p>Earlier this week, Senators voted unanimously to ban federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices. <span class="s1">“In light of all we know, it is unthinkable to me that we should continue to permit federal employees &#8211; those workers entrusted with sensitive government data &#8211; to access this app on their work phones and computers,” argues Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the bill&#8217;s sponsor. </span></p>
<p>Issues with TikTok in the US could be solved with a takeover from Microsoft, which plans to acquire TikTok&#8217;s business in the US and three other countries by mid-September.</p>
<p><strong>Author&#8217;s Note:</strong> Trump is one of few US officials who understands the severity of the threat posed by China. His decisions to expel Huawei from America&#8217;s 5G network and restrict TikTok and WeChat are part of a broader strategy to limit Chinese spying in the US and protect Americans&#8217; personal information.</p>