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Update: This piece was originally published on August 11th and has been updated to reflect the official commerce order banning transactions with ByteDance.
On September 18th, the Department of Commerce issued its first implementation of President *****’s TikTok ban, set to take effect on September 20th. The order calls for a complete halt of all US transactions with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, blocking new downloads but leaving existing versions of the app in place. It’s a severe response to national security concerns that are still abstract, and a more involved ban is still scheduled for November. Many observers have sidestepped the alarming implications of the order, treating it as a tactical threat to speed along ongoing…