The Trump administration will ban WeChat and video-sharing app TikTok from US app stores starting Sunday.
The United States on Friday ordered a ban on downloads of popular video app TikTok and effectively blocked the use of the Chinese super-app WeChat on US national security grounds, escalating a fight with Beijing over digital technology.
"The Chinese Communist Party has demonstrated the means and motives to use these apps to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the US," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. "It's a mistake to think of this as a sanction on TikTok and WeChat. It's a serious restriction on the First Amendment rights of US citizens and residents," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.The moves would effectively disable US use of WeChat -- a so-called super-app used for messaging, shopping, payments and other services -- and TikTok from the online marketplaces operated by Apple and Google.
The ban ramps up the battle with Beijing over technology, which some analysts say is based more on competitive than security concerns.
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