The new administration of the United States, unlike the previous one, is not an active social media user. Perhaps that is why the situation around TikTok is still up in the air. The White House seems to have forgotten about former President Donald Trump's plans to ban the app.
According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, the administration has an ongoing review of risks the social network may pose to American users' personal data. However, she noted that the White House had taken no new "proactive step" related to a potential sale of TikTok's US operations.
Notably, in August last year, Donald Trump issued an executive order that would force ByteDance to sell or spin off its US TikTok business. Such measures were supposed to protect national security and prevent Beijing from exploiting the app to collect user data or disseminate propaganda.
However, this does not mean that the relationship between the United States and China’s social networking service has improved. Press Secretary Jen Psaki avoided further comment on that issue. However, she stressed that the administration was still conducting a comprehensive review of the "risks to U.S. data ... including from TikTok, and will address them in a decisive and effective fashion." Then Psaki added: "But, if we have news to announce, we will announce it, so I wouldn’t take it as a new step."
