Looming TikTok ban a blow to digital diversity

Trump administration has launched a major diplomatic and ecomic offensive against China, hitting Chinese officials with myriad sanctions over past four months as relations between Washington and Beijing plummet to ir lowest levels in decades.

This week, Trump signed two executive orders that will bar U.S. companies and people from certain transactions with Chinese parent companies of social media apps TikTok and WeChat, ByteDance and TenCent. orders take effect in 45 days, giving at least TikTok chance to be purchased by a U.S. company such as Microsoft.

LaToya Shambo, founder and CEO of Black Girl Digital, Inc., says she's disappointed by any attempt to dismantle a platform that has widened for Black digital influencers.

"Tiktok has definitely created a for a lot of Black multicultural influence to really thrive in being creative in a short ," she says.

Nikkia McClain a New York City mor and founder of Tene Nicole Marketing, says her 13-year-old and 23-year-old daughters use app religiously, but says she always encours her clients to think about what's coming next. She points to an up-and-coming platform called Kandiid, which allows content creators to monetize ir posts.

Trump administration, citing need to protect Americans' personal and or sensitive data from China, has also embarked on a worldwide campaign to stop Chinese telecom firms like Huawei and ZTE from participating in high-tech 5G wireless networks. It has thus far met with limited success, but this week it launched a major new initiative to purge global communications links, including underseas cables, of Chinese presence.

President Donald Trump and his top aides have railed against China for its response to coronavirus pandemic that began re, looking to make political hay ahead of vember's election. But administration's hostility toward China predates pandemic. Even while Trump played up his relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, calling him "a very, very good friend of mine," his administration has been taking aim at China on multiple fronts since mid-2019.

In a statement on ir website, TikTok leaders address ir 100 million American users, writing, "TikTok will be here for many years to come. (…) "We have made clear that TikTok has never shared user data with Chinese government, r censored content at its request."