As much as some of you would applaud it.
United States President Donald J. Trump signed two executive orders tonight banning WeChat and TikTok, specifically barring transactions to the companies over security issues and data collection. You can spy on American citizens and collect data sight unseen, but only to market us a new flavor of Fanta. None of that communist garbage.
This has led to the internet doing what it always does and responding in a cool, calm, and calculated manner. I’m just kidding everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off and is screaming that the sky is falling.
I originally started writing this as a Hotcakes that I wasn’t afraid of the White House barring payments to any company owned or invested in by Tencent because the concept is ridiculous and would never hold up in court, not that it would ever make it to the point of being enforced if that was the case because the whole idea can’t possibly be legal and also Tencent has $54 billion in annual revenue and could literally drag this out until our grandchildren are still fighting it. Banning access to WeChat is staggering enough as it is and I have my doubts that the President can do that through executive order. Banning all of the companies that Tencent is involved in? Yea that’s not going to happen.
Thankfully I don’t have to wait until tomorrow to publish my piece. Sam Dean of the Los Angeles Deans is a tech report for the LA Times. He has posted on Twitter confirming a statement by a White House official that the executive order does not apply to anything outside of WeChat.
Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order!
White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat
So Riot Games (League of Legends), Epic Games (Fortnite), et al are safe
(pending updates)
— Sam Dean ? (@SamAugustDean) August 7, 2020
So you can rest easy knowing that Trump is not coming after your Fortnite. For now. Now Baron Trump will probably continue headshotting you in matches but that’s an entirely different story. I assume the kid probably plays Fortnite and owns a lot of skins.
