Yazılar

Trump to Sign Executive Order Approving TikTok Divestiture Deal

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President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday affirming that a deal under negotiation to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations meets the requirements of a 2024 law, according to a White House source.

The law, passed last year by Congress, mandates that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance must divest its U.S. assets or face a ban of the short video app, which has 170 million American users.

Trump, who has 15 million followers on his personal TikTok account, has publicly credited the platform with helping him win re-election in 2024. The White House itself launched an official TikTok account last month.

The administration has delayed enforcement of the divestiture law until mid-December to give time for negotiations, including lining up American investors and structuring the transaction to qualify as a full separation from ByteDance.

Thursday’s executive order is also expected to extend the compliance deadline, providing additional time for the deal to be finalized.

TikTok Collected Sensitive Data on Canadian Children, Probe Reveals

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TikTok has pledged to strengthen safeguards to keep children off its platform after a Canadian investigation concluded that the company failed to adequately block underage users and protect their personal information.

The inquiry, led by Canada’s federal privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne along with privacy watchdogs in Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta, found that hundreds of thousands of Canadian children used TikTok annually despite the platform’s minimum age requirement of 13.

Investigators also determined that TikTok collected sensitive personal data from “a large number” of children and used it for marketing and content-targeting purposes. “TikTok collects vast amounts of personal information about its users, including children. This data is being used to target the content and ads that users see, which can have harmful impacts, particularly on youth,” Dufresne said at a press conference.

In response, TikTok agreed to adopt stricter age-verification systems, improve transparency about how user data is used, and prevent advertisers from directly targeting anyone under 18, except through broad categories such as language or approximate location. The company also expanded the privacy information available to Canadian users.

A TikTok spokesperson said the company was pleased regulators accepted several of its proposals to “further strengthen” protections for Canadian users, while noting disagreement with some of the findings. The spokesperson did not specify which ones.

The case comes amid growing global scrutiny of TikTok due to concerns about its ties to China. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, and governments worldwide—including the EU and the U.S.—have taken steps to restrict or ban the app on official devices.

In Canada, the government launched a review of TikTok’s planned expansion in 2023, which ultimately led to an order demanding the company shut down its Canadian operations over national security risks. TikTok is challenging that order.

China summons ByteDance, Alibaba platforms over online content violations

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China’s Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has summoned ByteDance’s Toutiao news platform and Alibaba’s UCWeb browser unit for alleged content violations, adding them to the growing list of tech firms targeted in Beijing’s online crackdown.

According to separate statements issued Tuesday, both platforms were recently penalized for “disrupting the online ecosystem order,” with CAC imposing strict disciplinary actions against responsible personnel.

Alleged violations:

  • Toutiao: Allowed “harmful content” to appear in trending topic lists and other features.

  • UCWeb: Allowed non-authoritative sources and non-mainstream media to dominate trending topics, including coverage of sensitive and malicious events such as cyberbullying and the privacy of minors.

The summons comes as CAC launches a two-month nationwide campaign to remove violent or hostile content, part of a long-running effort to promote a “clean and healthy cyberspace” that aligns with Communist Party socialist values.

Industry-wide sweep

Toutiao said it welcomed the action, pledging to form a task force to combat non-compliant content and trolling. UCWeb has yet to issue a public statement.
CAC has also taken action in recent weeks against Kuaishou, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu (RedNote) for similar violations.

Wider regulatory push

The crackdown comes amid growing concern about public sentiment, as China faces economic headwinds and persistent youth unemployment. Other regulators are also stepping up:

  • The market watchdog summoned logistics platform Huolala over anti-monopoly compliance.

  • Days earlier, it launched an investigation into Kuaigou, an e-commerce arm of Kuaishou, for suspected e-commerce law violations.

Huolala described its summoning as a “profound wake-up call,” vowing stricter compliance going forward.

Beijing’s message is clear: online platforms must not only police content but also align with the state’s broader political and social stability agenda.