politics

Former US President Donald Trump tried to finish as many pending tasks before his term ended but there were still many that were left unresolved. In the tech industry, one of the biggest was the fate of TikTok and its forced sale to a US company. Although the parties involved, including Oracle and Walmart, have already come into an agreement, they're still waiting for the US government approval that won't be coming anytime soon because the matter is now being reviewed again by the Biden administration.

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The change in the US political landscape will naturally send ripples through all aspects of the country's life and business, especially those more contentious policies and views that Donald Trump left behind. Some of those have already been reversed while others remained. Naturally, that also gave some companies recently added to the country's dreaded Entity List a bit of hope for a reprieve. Unfortunately for Huawei and other Chinese company's on that list, President Joe Biden's pick for the Commerce Department isn't that keen on changing the status quo.

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The Biden administration has made White House press briefings more accessible for people who are deaf or have trouble hearing. If you head over to the official White House channel on YouTube, you'll now be able to watch these press events with an American Sign Language interpreter, something Press Secretary Jen Psaki says is intended to improve accessibility.

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Tomorrow, Wednesday the 20th of January, is Inauguration Day in the US, marking the start of Joe Biden's term as the 46th US president. The inauguration will happen in an event at the US Capitol in Washington DC -- and though you can't attend yourself, you can still watch it live using a variety of platforms.

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The US is about to undergo a rather historic political transition in a few days but it seems that the outgoing Trump administration is hastily doing all that it can before that day comes. While there is no clear assurance that president-elect Biden will reverse the US government's stance in relation to Huawei's sanctions, what is clear right now is that not only the company but its dozens of suppliers as well are being left in limbo after the Commerce Department denied en masse 150 license requests that have been pending for months.

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In light of safety concerns surrounding the upcoming US presidential inauguration, Facebook has decided to ban events on its platform that would take place near the US Capitol building and White House. As well, the platform has also banned new events that would take place near state capitols until after Inauguration Day.

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Social media has been a great enabler but has also been criticized and scrutinized for poorly handling the spread of misinformation and inappropriate, not to mention illegal, behavior. It is almost ironic, then, that these networks have been rather quick to take action in the past days following the siege of the US Capitol building at Donald Trump's behest. The ban hammer continues to fall with Snapchat and YouTube following the example of others.

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Twitter has joined several other platforms in permanently banning Trump over recent tweets, the company has announced. The decision comes only hours after Twitter unlocked Trump's account, which had been suspended due to three tweets in particular that the company said needed to be deleted. Twitter joins Facebook, Twitch, Snapchat, and a number of other platforms in banning the president.

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Following yesterday's events on Capitol Hill, during which a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol Building, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that President Trump has been banned from both Facebook and Instagram indefinitely. While there's no indication of when Trump's accounts may be reinstated - if they are at all - Zuckerberg has said that he will remain blocked on both platforms at least through the end of his term on January 20th.

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The US political landscape is again under a tense atmosphere as people count down the days before a critical change in government. Before that happens, however, the current administration under President Donald Trump seems to be making haste to implement orders and make new rules that have been in the making for months. The latest in that list is an executive order that finally does what Trump has long threatened to do and ban transactions with certain Chinese apps, including those used for money transfers like WeChat Pay.

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The year is far from over and, as far as the current US government is concerned, there is still plenty of time for actions that have long-lasting effects. One of those is expanding the US' notorious "Entity List" to include not just SMIC, China's largest chipmaker, but also, surprisingly, popular drone company DJI. That said, the latter was already rumored to be on the country's hit list, giving it time to make a bold response assuring customers in the country that they will still be able to buy DJI's products as normal.

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It seems that the year won't be ending well for Huawei and ZTE even though the two's smartphone businesses remain somewhat stable for now. The Chinese companies' networking businesses, on the other hand, might be dealt with a rather devastating blow based on the FCC's latest orders. Removing Huawei's and ZTE's networking equipment will hurt rural carriers the most but the FCC promises help will be coming, provided the US Congress finally gets the funds needed to subsidize the costs.

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