Biden Won’t Pursue TikTok Ban For Now

The President Joe Biden administration is easing up on the TikTok ban former President Donald Trump was pursuing, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

The Biden administration has asked the court to postpone a legal case while it goes over a broader review of the threat posed by TikTok or Chinese apps to national security, the AP reported.

According to a court filing Wednesday (Feb. 10), per the AP, the U.S. Department of Commerce is looking over whether Trump’s claims about TikTok — that the data U.S. users were putting in could be accessed by the Chinese government — hold water as a reason to ban it from the country.

The AP reported that the Biden administration has separately put a stop indefinitely to the proposed U.S. takeover of TikTok that Trump was also pursuing, which would have seen Oracle and Walmart join forces to own the app’s American presence. Trump had wanted to see TikTok banned unless it agreed to more American control on the country’s shores.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki didn’t deny the reports but said the Biden administration had not taken a “new proactive step,” according to the AP. She said the administration is working on evaluating risks to U.S. data, including from TikTok. A review of the company by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is ongoing.

The Trump administration’s efforts last year met resistance from ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, which raised lawsuits to combat the effort.

PYMNTS reported on the Biden administration’s decision to put a hold on the Trump administration’s bid to force the sale, writing that the talks between ByteDance and the government have continued. There are options being discussed to make sure the Chinese government can’t access data from Americans from the app.

National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said in the report that there are plans to “develop a comprehensive approach” to securing U.S. data, which would encompass the risks from Chinese apps and others that could pose threats.