64% of Americans oppose the president’s executive order against TikTok

Microsoft has reportedly been looking at buying the North America, Australia, and New Zealand operations of TikTok although company founder Bill Gates has stated his reservations. Twitter has supposedly has had preliminary meetings with TikTok to form some sort of combination. However, this would be quite a longshot considering that the estimated valuation of TikTok is well above the $30 billion that Twitter is worth. But even if a deal with a U.S. firm is completed, the Harris Poll found that 62% of Americans would continue to believe that the app would pose a national security threat because of its ties to China. The rest of the poll saw 67% of Americans worried that the Chinese are using personal data collected by TikTok, a sentiment agreed to by 59% of TikTok users.

Also facing a ban in the U.S. is messaging, social media, and mobile payment app WeChat. The latter, launched by Tencent in 2011, has over one billion users and many Chinese consumers rely on the app every single day. Trump also signed an executive order that will ban U.S. firms from doing business with WeChat. The White House document seen by Reuters is not clear on whether WeChat will indeed be banned in the states.

The U.S. ban on TikTok would take effect starting on September 16th, the same date that any WeChat ban would also begin. James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “That kills TikTok in the U.S. If they want to grow, these rules are a huge obstacle.” Lewis did note that the U.S. government might not be able to prevent American TikTok fans from downloading the app from a foreign website. TikTok has 100 million users in the U.S. and has stated that data from its U.S. subscribers is stored on servers in the U.S. and Singapore and that such information would not be given to the Chinese government.

TikTok says that it plans to continue honoring ad campaigns although some corporations say that they have made plans to advertise on other apps if TikTok is shut down in America.