<story><title>Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/trump-says-he-will-ban-tiktok-through-executive-action-as-soon-as-saturday.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Twisell</author><text>Not US citizen here. Can someone explain how in a democracy the chief executive can singlehandedly decide to ban a media only a few month before elections?&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t make any sense of that, it seems wrong at so many levels...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>caymanjim</author><text>The short answer is that he can&amp;#x27;t. The president has no power to ban TikTok. The president also has no control over how the app is distributed or its connectivity. He can say whatever he wants, and he can strongarm the agencies he has some control over (like the FCC), but there&amp;#x27;s simply no mechanism by which a ban can be enforced, legal or technical. Unless Google and Apple decide to voluntarily remove it from their app stores and forcibly remove existing downloads, it&amp;#x27;s not going away, and neither company is going to do that without a legal battle. There&amp;#x27;s no one who even has the authority to demand it, though.</text></comment>
<story><title>Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/trump-says-he-will-ban-tiktok-through-executive-action-as-soon-as-saturday.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Twisell</author><text>Not US citizen here. Can someone explain how in a democracy the chief executive can singlehandedly decide to ban a media only a few month before elections?&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t make any sense of that, it seems wrong at so many levels...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JanSt</author><text>It‘s a question of distribution power. If the power is granted to the executive branch, they can do it. It‘s part of decisions on their own country. I consider it much more questionable to exert power over allied countries to stop extraterritorial infrastructure projects (i.e. Nordstream 2), because the US wants to sell fracking gas to europe. I‘m sure that using such power will lead to losing it long-term and former allies for mutual profit will grow apart.</text></comment>