Media has been flooding with the news regarding Chinese apps and its role in privacy breaches since the outburst of the novel coronavirus. Once the pandemic took a toll on all our lives, from vivid facts to conspiracy theories have come up regarding China being responsible for this havoc. Though the other nations suspect COVID-19 as a biological weapon, there is no strong evidence supporting it. But, seeing China as a threat to the world especially the U.S., Trump administration decided to ban the Chinese apps mainly TikTok and WeChat.
The Big news
The relationship between China and the U.S has gotten stale with Trump announcing the ban on Chinese apps. To expand the Clean Network, Trump gave a deadline until mid-September to sell the assets of TikTok to any other company. With Trump accusing such Chinese apps of information theft, political battles have increased since the last month. Amongst this grave tension, Kevin Mayer, the new CEO of TikTok decided to step down yesterday. In the meantime, Vanessa Papas, the current general manager of TikTok will take his position as the interim head.
Why Kevin Mayer stepped down?
It has been only 100 days since Kevin Mayer, former Disney executive joined the most famous small video making Chinese app, TikTok owned by ByteDance. Kevin Mayer made a big decision resigning from Disney to become the CEO of TikTok, but unfortunately, everything went haywire. After Trump gave an order earlier this month to ban the Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat, the disturbance created between Beijing and Washington.
Before the ban of TikTok in the U.S., India banned all the Chinese apps mainly because of the dispute regarding the LAC. With all these political tensions not stopping anytime sooner, Kevin’s scope in TikTok might not go as expected. So, his decision to step down from the company is completely understandable, said a TikTok’s spokesperson to TechCrunch. Moreover, only a few days back TikTok sued the U.S. government for false accusations against the company.
The fight that both the TikTok and the U.S. government have picked up will have harsh consequences in the future for both sides. Kevin Mayer didn’t expect political tension of this intensity to fall upon his reign and hence he decided to step down. Moreover, the timeline of becoming the newest CEO of the company and the political rivalry has clashed coincidentally. But, Kevin has all the right to get far away from this growing tension and seek a better career opportunity.
Why did Trump order a ban on Chinese apps?
On 6th August 2020, Trump signed an executive order thus banning TikTok and WeChat within a timeline of 45 days. Trump accused these Chinese apps of stealing data that might harm the privacy of the U.S. citizens and compromise the national security of the nation. He also supported India’s act of banning 59 Chinese apps and decided it is time the U.S. takes some strict action against this information theft. It banned all U.S. citizens to conduct any transaction through these platforms or any brand from the U.S. to advertise their products.
This was a big blow for TikTok as the U.S. served as one of the biggest markets for the platform. In 2020, TikTok gained revenue of $200 million for the U.S. alone. Getting banned from the U.S. brought a huge loss for the company. Moreover, with China being thrashed everywhere in social media for the COVID-19 pandemic, the company should keep fingers crossed until any other nation takes a bold step.
Bargaining over the U.S. assets of TikTok
After Trump administration imposed banned on the U.S. operations of TikTok, many companies have come forward for buying them. Microsoft being the first company to take interest in buying the U.S. operations of TikTok, Trump was interested to sell it. Meanwhile, Twitter showed interest in buying the company’s U.S. assets but this decision was questioned. The market capitalization of Twitter is almost equal to the TikTok’s value of U.S. operation while Microsoft’s valuation is in trillions. So, it becomes crystal clear who might win the bidding. Apart from Microsoft and Twitter, Oracle is the third bidder. But, till now Microsoft is winning the race.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more