It looks like thousands of Americans hope Trump will end his troubles with Chinese social media platforms soon enough.
We can picture U.S. citizens holding up their pointers and waiting to push install on the probed apps.
That’s the only imagery that justifies what happened over the weekend when we think about it.
As soon as Americans got wind of news that meant they wouldn’t be getting access to the app anymore, those held up finger came right down and landed on the install button.
Fifty-four thousand! That’s the number of times that Americans installed WeChat within two days.
It looks like these pirates were never on board with captain Trump.
One week before, the app was installed 1,900 times by U.S. citizens in two days.
According to data sourced from Sensor Tower, a data analytics corporation that tracks mobile apps.
The new record is 28 times more than that.
A huge leap forward
Sensor Tower also confirmed that WeChat’s ranking among free iOS apps shot through the roof on Friday.
WeChat went form 1,385 that morning to 100 at noon.
That’s a giant leap if you ask me.
If WeChat were in the Olympics for long jump, they’d have won a medal for pulling off a jump like that.
The question is, will this trend continue? Or will Trump put an end to it soon?
On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department declared that it was following through on its promise to ban the app.
The ban was meant to take effect on Sunday.
To that effect, the Department prompted Apple and Google to remove WeChat from their app stores.
The basis for this –as has been echoed for weeks – is a national security concern.
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The interception
In a last-minute attempt on Sunday, a U.S. judge stopped the motion.
However, the U.S. is not giving up on its hunt yet.
They will be challenging the order issued by the judge in the coming days.
Judge Laurel Beeler maintains a position that’s quite logical to us at Techuncode.
He opines that the U.S. government’s interest in protecting national security is judicious.
Though the government strongly suggests that China’s activities raise national security concerns.
It has not been able to put together concrete evidence that proves that its WeChat ban for all U.S. users addresses those concerns.
The implication of the ban
If the U.S. is relieved from this order and proceeds to implement the ban, here’s what will happen.
U.S. users who already have the app installed will still have access to its services.
The only exceptions being restrictions to application updates and other services.
On the other hand, citizens who haven’t installed the app wouldn’t be able to anymore.
TikTok seems to have gotten off the hook since it bagged a deal with Oracle.
Now that Judge Beeler has bought WeChat some time.
We hope Tencent will be able to work out an acceptable agreement.
The type that’d keep WeChat running in the U.S. just like it did with TikTok.
And if that happens, then all this would have been a blessing in disguise for the company.
They’d have gotten a significant increase in downloads all on a platter of gold.
Unlike TikTok, WeChat has no record of any “suitors” yet.
Do you think they’d be able to make it through without any or find one in time?
Let’s know your thoughts in the comment section.
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