Washington D.C., USA — “We do not want Tiktok to go dark.”
This was the statement of United States president Donald trump as he grants another extension for social media platform tiktok for it to evade total ban in the country.
This a new 75-day extension for ByteDance to comply with the law imposed for the Tiktok platform to avoid total ban in the U.S.
It can be recalled that former president Joe Biden’s administration has argued that the Chinese-owned platform can be used as a tool for spying activities and political manipulation.
While tha platform management denied these claims, the US Congress passed a bipartisan law last year giving ByteDance six months to sell the control of the platform to US, or be banned once and for all.
The original deadline was set on January 19, but Trump extended the deadline for 75 days, which expired on April 5.
Trump’s reason for the extension is that he is seeking to form an agreement and deal with the company to not affect over 170 million TikTok users in the U.S.
ByteDance said that there has been an agreement but it has not been resolved yet.