The Chinese entrepreneur behind TikTok took ample precautions when he set out to straddle the tech world’s most treacherous divide: the one separating China’s tightly controlled internet from the rest of the planet. He made TikTok unavailable in China so the video app’s users wouldn’t be subject to the Communist Party’s censorship requirements. He hired managers in the United States to run the app and lobbyists in Washington to fight for it on Capitol Hill. None of that counted for much in the end. Only this time, it is the U.S. government, not China’s, putting up the barricades — an escalation that could foretell an even more restrictive time ahead for companies in both countries.

Source: International New York Times August 03, 2020 12:56 UTC