President Trump announces to reporters that he’s banning TikTok | Hacker News Reader

President Trump announces to reporters that he’s banning TikTok

twitter.com

18 pointskarterk14 comments

Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016858

Left out of the discussion is whether the president actually has the authority to ban an app without due process...

Generally, most lawyers would say that his authority is limited to the use of tiktok by federal employees or members of the armed forces. Banning the app for everyone at the national level would require more than an executive order.

How exactly does he plan to ban it? He may try to take it off app stores, but at least on android, users can just install an apk.

This was suggested when TikTok was banned in India. However the reality is that people just moved onto other clones.

>>users can just install an apk.

all five of them. Remove it from app stores, make it illegal to carry and it's toast. If no one in your circle has that app, no point on installing it.

There is no provision that would allow the executive branch to make it illegal to carry by fiat.

The app stores can fight any such order longer than Trump can remain president.

There is nothing he can do.

and fight they might. As per provisions, see Huawei case https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18216988/white-house-huaw... (national security)

The Huawei justification wouldn't apply here, since it involved critical infrastructure that is already subject to national security approval.

I have bad news for you. National security is broad enough that you're going to have a bad time.

>Trump said he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to ban TikTok in the United States.

He's not wrong.

He is wrong. Nobody will enforce this before its had its day in court and by the time it happens there wont be a president trump.

Couldn't he force all internet providers to ban connectivity to the IPs? Then only VPN users could use Tik Tok, basically making it useless

Has the US ever done this before? Force internet providers to ban certain IP's? Because this also, ironically, is how China blocks the majority of the western internet

I don't think the US has ever blocked at the IP level. ICE and DHS typically just seize naughty domains by taking over their DNS records (recent examples at http://coronaprevention.org and http://chinaseatbelt.com).

For entities with a US presence, the threat of prosecution usually does the trick (see https://codeisfreespeech.com/)

poof goes the $50B valuation

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