President Trump doubled down late Friday on his previous actions against TikTok by formally giving ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the popular video-sharing app, 90 days to divest from its American assets and any data that TikTok had gathered in the United States. “There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance,” which merged TikTok with the American lip-sync app Musical.ly in 2018, “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” Mr. Trump wrote in an executive order issued at 7:45 p.m.Reaffirming the order, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which examines national security threats, had recommended the action after an exhaustive review “in order to protect U.S. users from exploitation of their personal data.”Mr. Mnuchin, who is chairman of the panel, known as CFIUS, added, “The order directs ByteDance to divest all interests and rights in any assets or property used to enable or support the operation of TikTok in the United States, and any data obtained or derived from TikTok or Musical.ly users in the United States.”

Source: New York Times August 15, 2020 02:37 UTC