This morning, the US Commerce Department has officially announced that it will ban two massively popular applications in the United States — TikTok and WeChat.

TikTok is currently looking for a buyer before the November 12th deadline imposed by President Trump. The social media service will be banned unless there’s an acquisition, and many companies from Microsoft and Oracle to Twitter have been rumored to be in the running. A new report today says that Alphabet looked into making a TikTok investment as part of a broader group bid.

At the start of this month, President Trump announced that the US would “close down” TikTok on September 15 unless it was acquired. Data privacy and security concerns have always shrouded the app, and a new report reveals one particular loophole that TikTok exploited on Android to collect MAC addresses. 

Over the last few years, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic gave many of us a lot more free time, TikTok has become one of the leading social media apps worldwide. Today, following talk of the United States officially banning the service, likes and view counts have disappeared from the TikTok app, but a fix is on the way.

In a press release today, a huge ban was announced on dozens of major apps — including the massively popular TikTok social network — that originate in China amid a bigger feud between India and China.