Biden revokes TikTok ban, plans app review

President Joe Biden on Wednesday revoked a Trump-era executive order that sought to ban the popular apps TikTok and WeChat and replaced it with one that calls for a broader review of a number of foreign-controlled applications that could pose a security risk to Americans and their data.

The Trump-era order had not been carried out “in the soundest fashion,” administration officials said in a call with reporters Wednesday, adding that the new directive would establish “clear, intelligible criteria” to evaluate national security risks posed by software applications connected to foreign governments, particularly China.

Biden’s directive is yet another designed to reassess executive orders made by his predecessor, Donald Trump, to curb the growing influence of the Chinese military and Beijing’s technology sector. It is also the first significant step Biden has taken to approach an ongoing saga between TikTok and the Trump administration, which tried to ban the app over concerns it posed to national security, and was immediately challenged in federal court.

Analysts said the new order is meant to create a process that could withstand such a challenge.

On Wednesday, administration officials would not go into specifics about the future of TikTok’s availability to American users or say whether the U.S. government would seek to compel ByteDance to transfer American user data to a company based in the United States. Amid a number of successful legal challenges waged by ByteDance, a deal to transfer the data to Oracle fell through this year shortly after Biden took office.

Administration officials said a review of TikTok by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the body that considers the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companies, was still continuing and separate from the order.

Several apps, including TikTok, WeChat and Alipay, did not respond to requests for comment.

The order issued Wednesday was meant to broaden one issued in 2019 by the Trump administration, which banned U.S. telecommunications companies from installing foreign-made equipment that could pose a threat to national security. That order did not name specific companies, nor did the one Biden issued Wednesday.

The new directive also does not mention specific retaliatory measures that could be taken if an application is found to be a threat to national security.