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Trump Cabinet to Launch TikTok Accounts After DOJ Clearance
The DOJ cleared federal employees to use TikTok after ruling the app's current joint venture is majority-owned by American investors and independent of ByteDance.
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Most of President Donald Trump's Cabinet is expected to launch official TikTok accounts Tuesday, a White House official confirmed. The coordinated rollout follows a July 16 opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that concluded federal employees may use the app because its current version falls outside a 2022 ban.
The No TikTok on Government Devices Act barred TikTok from federal devices over national security concerns tied to Chinese parent ByteDance. The DOJ opinion said the law only prohibits versions "developed or provided by entities in which ByteDance Limited has a controlling ownership stake." The current version, operated by the TikTok U.S. Data Security Joint Venture, no longer meets that definition, the opinion concluded. The joint venture "functions independently of ByteDance, is majority-owned by American investors and has revised the content recommendation algorithm and cybersecurity program," the DOJ wrote.