An Australian Senate committee has recommended a ban on the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from federal government devices be extended to China’s most popular social media platform, WeChat.

Among the fastest-growing segments of the Texas population, Chinese Americans fear their rights are becoming collateral damage as Texas officials seek to limit investment from China and ban a popular app that many rely on to keep in touch with family.

Word of anti-lockdown protests in China spread on domestic social media for a short period last weekend, thanks to a rare pause in the cat-and-mouse game that goes on between millions of Chinese internet users and the country’s gargantuan censorship machine.

China’s most popular social media service has deleted accounts on LGBT topics run by university students and nongovernment groups, prompting concern the ruling Communist Party is tightening control over gay and lesbian content.

China’s Ministry of Commerce has said a U_S_ move to revoke Trump administration’s executive orders intended to ban apps like TikTok and WeChat was a “positive step.”.

The White House has dropped Trump-era executive orders that attempted to ban the popular apps TikTok and WeChat and will conduct its own review aimed at identifying national security risks with software applications tied to China.

NEW YORK – A judge has approved a request from a group of U.S. WeChat users to delay looming federal government restrictions that could effectively make the popular app nearly impossible to use. The group of WeChat users requested an injunction after the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it would bar WeChat from U.S. app stores and keep it from accessing essential internet services in the country beginning Sunday at 11:59 p.m. The Trump administration has targeted WeChat and another Chinese-owned app, TikTok, for national security and data privacy concerns, in the latest flashpoint amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. Furthermore, specific evidence about WeChat posing a national security threat was also “modest,” she wrote. The dispute over WeChat and TikTok is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to counter the influence of China.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Saturday he's given his “blessing” to a proposed deal that would see the popular video-sharing app TikTok partner with Oracle and Walmart and form a U.S. company. Trump said if completed the deal would create a new company likely to be based in Texas. “We are pleased that the proposal by TikTok, Oracle, and Walmart will resolve the security concerns of the U.S. administration and settle questions around TikTok’s future in the U.S.,” TikTok said in a statement. On Saturday, Trump said the U.S.-based TikTok “will have nothing to do with China.” TikTok says it has 100 million U.S. users. Earlier Saturday, WeChat users asked a U.S. judge to block the government's actions, saying they would restrict free speech.

The order disallowing TikTok and WeChat from smartphone app stores takes effect Sunday, as do additional restrictions on the use of WeChat. For WeChat users, the order won't prohibit individual users from sending texts or making payments. For TikTok users who've already downloaded the app, it should still work normally for now. App users can try to use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to disguise their location and pretend they're in another country. A federal judge in California appeared sympathetic to WeChat users in a hearing Saturday but did not immediately issue a ruling on their request for an injunction against the government.

TikTok won't face the most drastic sanctions until after the Nov. 3 election, but WeChat users could feel the effects as early as Sunday. The order, which cited national security and data privacy concerns, follows weeks of dealmaking over the video-sharing service TikTok. Trump had said this week that he does not like the idea of ByteDance keeping majority control of TikTok. The administration, however, has provided no specific evidence that TikTok has made U.S. users’ data available to the Chinese government. Some cybersecurity experts question whether the administration's efforts are more political than rooted in legitimate concerns about Chinese threats to data security.

In this image made from video taken in August 2020, parents gather behind a police line outside a school in Tongliao in Northwestern China's Inner Mongolia region. Ethnic Mongolians, including students and parents, in Chinas Inner Mongolia region are demonstrating their anger in rare public protests against a new bilingual education policy that they say is endangering the Mongolian language. (AP Photo)TAIPEI Police in China's Inner Mongolia region have detained at least 23 people following protests last week against a new policy that replaces Mongolian-language textbooks with Chinese ones in classrooms. Others were for flagrantly insulting a deceased former leader of the country and sharing videos in a WeChat group to obstruct the implementation of the national textbooks policy. WeChat is a popular messaging app in China. There are still many young people, middle-aged people and herders who cannot use Mandarin for basic communication, said a Q&A published by the state-backed Inner Mongolia Daily.

President Donald Trump walks over to speak with the press after arriving on Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, N.J., Friday, Aug. 14, 2020. Trump heading to New York to visit with his younger brother, Robert Trump, who has been hospitalized in New York. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)WASHINGTON President Donald Trump on Friday gave the Chinese company ByteDance 90 days to divest itself of any assets used to support the popular TikTok app in the United States. Trump on Friday also ordered ByteDance to divest itself of "any data obtained or derived" from TikTok users in the U.S.Microsoft is in talks to buy parts of TikTok. TikTok said it spent nearly a year trying to engage in good faith with the U.S. government to address these concerns.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered an unspecified ban on “transactions” with the Chinese owners of the consumer apps TikTok and WeChat. Trump had threatened a deadline of Sept. 15 to “close down” TikTok unless Microsoft or “somebody else” bought it. TikTok, Microsoft and WeChat owner Tencent had no immediate replies to queries. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that he was expanding the U.S. crackdown on Chinese technology to personal apps, calling out TikTok and WeChat by name. WeChat and its sister app Weixin in China are hugely popular messaging apps.

NEW YORK President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered an unspecified ban on transactions with the Chinese owners of the consumer apps TikTok and WeChat. Trump had threatened a deadline of Sept. 15 to close down TikTok unless Microsoft or somebody else bought it. TikTok, Microsoft and WeChat owner Tencent had no immediate replies to queries. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that he was expanding the U.S. crackdown on Chinese technology to personal apps, calling out TikTok and WeChat by name. WeChat and its sister app Weixin in China are hugely popular messaging apps.