Microsoft is serious about buying Tik Tok and some outlets are reporting that the deal is expected to be done in Mid-September. President Trump on Friday announced plans to ban the app from the United States.
Microsoft announced plans to buy the app in part to avoid U.S. bans from the President. According to Reuters, Tik Tok, owned by the Chinese company Bytedance has been given 45 days to close a deal with the tech company before Trump bans the app from the United States via executive order.
Tik Tok currently hosts about 100 million users in the United States. Generation Z and millennial creatives have flooded the app with content and at times forms of activism. Prior to President Trump’s Tulsa, Oklahoma rally in June, Tik Tok users trolled the incumbent presidential candidate by booking hundreds of thousands of tickets to the event and not showing up.
This form of political activism tricked the Trump campaign into expecting more than a million people to show up for the event only to settle for a fraction of the expected occupancy.
Trump’s decision to ban the app came after reports that Tik Tok had access to tons of personal data of each user which has been a big focus with tech companies since 2016.
