Donald Trump Hints TikTok Deal Reached With China

US President Donald Trump on Monday announced a deal with a "certain company" as talks are underway with China to settle the two countries' dispute over social media giant TikTok.

"A deal was also reached on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save," Trump wrote on Truth Social, after praising a trade meeting between the United States, the EU and China as having gone "VERY WELL."

Trump added that he will speak to Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday.

TikTok is one of more than 100 apps developed in the past decade by ByteDance, a technology firm founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming and headquartered in Beijing's northwestern Haidian district.

The app gained more traction during the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, when short dances that went viral became a mainstay of the app. To better compete, Instagram and YouTube eventually came out with their own tools for making short-form videos, respectively known as Reels and Shorts. By that point, TikTok was a bona fide hit.

Challenges came in tandem with TikTok's success. US officials expressed concerns about the company's roots and ownership, pointing to laws in China that require Chinese companies to hand over data requested by the government. Another concern became the proprietary algorithm that populates what users see on the app.

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