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Donald Trump will ban downloads of TikTok and WeChat from this week, amid a blazing row over the social networks' Chinese owners. Officials are set to block both networks from App Stores from Sunday unless owner ByteDance can reach an agreement over the future of its US operations. The President signed an order last month ordering US firms to stop working with TikTok and WeChat unless a deal could be found to sell the networks' US operations to an American firm. The US Government say the ban is over "malicious collection of American citizens' personal data."
Although Carly Kind, Director of the Ada Lovelace Institute said: "That's an interesting new spin on what is essentially the entire business model of the internet..."
US firm Oracle has been in talks to create a new company - TikTok Global - to address Trump's concerns about the security of users' data. But the deal would have to meet the approval of the President himself before it could go ahead. And Trump has been calling for the US Treasury to be paid a huge chunk of the proceeds of any deal, something the Treasury says there is no legal framework to accomplish. The President said on Wednesday that he was not ready to sign off the deal for Oracle to buy TikTok.
"It has to be 100% as far as national security is concerned," he said. "No, I'm not prepared to sign off anything. I have to see the deal."
READ ALSO: TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quits after three months
Of the Treasury taking a cut of the deal, the President said: "Amazingly, I find that you're not allowed to do that. There is no way of doing that from - there is no legal path to doing that. They are willing to make a big payment to the government and we are not allowed to take their money? When does this happen? How foolish can we be?"
The Commerce Department suggested that while TikTok will be unavailable to download from Sunday, it will still work for existing users until early November.
"The basic TikTok will stay intact until Nov. 12," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business Network.
The department said the actions will "protect users in the US by eliminating access to these applications and significantly reducing their functionality."
Mr Ross said in a written statement: "We have taken significant action to combat China's malicious collection of American citizens' personal data while promoting our national values, democratic rules-based norms, and aggressive enforcement of U.S. laws and regulations."
TikTok has 100 million users in the United States and is especially popular among younger Americans. WeChat has had an average of 19 million daily active users in the United States, analytics firms Apptopia said in early August. It is popular among Chinese students, ex-pats and some Americans who have personal or business relationships in China. WeChat is an all-in-one mobile app that combines services similar to Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Venmo.
READ ALSO: Facebook launches TikTok-like product inside Instagram
The app is an essential part of daily life for many in China and boasts more than 1 billion users. The Commerce Department will not seek to compel people in the United States to remove the apps or stop using them but will not allow updates or new downloads.
