Although President Donald Trump said Friday he’ll take action to ban the short-video app TikTok as soon as Saturday, one of the company’s general managers took to Twitter and said the app doesn’t plan on going anywhere just yet.
U.S. General Manager Vanessa Pappas posted a video on TikTok’s Twitter page, thanking users for their continued support for the app and said Tiktok is here to stay.
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A message to the TikTok community. pic.twitter.com/UD3TR2HfEf
— TikTok (@tiktok_us) August 1, 2020
“We’ve heard your outpouring of support and we want to say, ‘thank you.’ We’re not planning on going anywhere. TikTok is a home for creators and artists to express themselves, their ideas, and connect with people across different backgrounds and we are so proud of all the various communities that call TikTok their home,” Pappas said in the video.
President Trump announced his intentions to ban the app Friday to reporters on Air Force One as he returned from Florida, according to a report from the Associated Press. U.S. lawmakers have said they are concerned about the company’s owner, China’s ByteDance, and if it has shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government. However, the company has denied the allegations, AP reports.
RELATED: Trump says he’ll act to ban TikTok in US as soon as Saturday
Trump told the Associated Press that he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to enforce the ban of the app, stating, “I have that authority.”
As of Saturday, ByteDance has agreed to divest its TikTok operations in the U.S. in an effort to combat Trump’s threat to ban the app, according to a Reuters report.
With this deal, Microsoft would be in charge of taking over U.S. user data. The deal also allows another company aside from Microsoft to operate TikTok in the U.S., according to Reuters.
As of Saturday morning, it’s unclear what the next official course of action is for the TikTok app.
This is a developing story and we’ll bring more updates as they become available.