‘TikTok may be banned in US,’ says President Donald Trump

The United States may ban Chinese-video sharing app TikTok, said President Donald Trump, amidst rising tensions between Beijing and Washington on a range of issues. “We are looking at TikTok, we may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things, we have a couple of options. We are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok,” he said. Trump added that he would sign an executive order and take action as soon as Saturday. In July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said that the Trump administration was considering a ban on TikTok application. The ban on access to TikTok was being considered over privacy concerns, Pompeo had added. Video-sharing application TikTok is owned by Beijing-based startup ByteDance. Recently, India had banned 59 Chinese mobile apps including TikTok, WeChat and Helo. Most of the apps banned in the June 29 order were red-flagged by intelligence agencies. The apps were banned with a view of threat to the nation's sovereignty and security.