TikTok Is Getting Banned—Is the U.S. Next?
Tuesday, July 07, 2020
Last week, TikTok was banned in India and now it is facing new pressures in the United States.
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the Trump Administration is considering banning the social media app TikTok in America.
“We’re taking this very seriously. We’re certainly looking at it,” Pompeo told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, citing the administration’s actions against the Chinese-based telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE, according to Politico.
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India has decided to ban 59 of China’s biggest mobile apps, including TikTok and Alibaba’s UC Browser, with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology alleging they are breaching the privacy of Indian users and mining their data."
'The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defense of India [ . . . ] is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,' the Ministry said."
"The app, owned by Beijing-based tech company ByteDance, has also elicited skepticism from government officials in Australia, as well as members of Congress in the U.S. — where major social media platforms have been criticized for the spread of misinformation and regulation of speech.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rick Scott of Florida introduced legislation in March that would prohibit federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued work phones."
In June, "TikTok teens say they tanked Trump's comeback rally in Tulsa by reserving thousands of tickets and not showing up," reported multiple outlets, including Business Insider.
TikTok Responds
Politico said a TikTok spokesperson in a statement issued Tuesday that the company “is led by an American CEO, with hundreds of employees and key leaders across safety, security, product, and public policy here” in the U.S.
“We have no higher priority than promoting a safe and secure app experience for our users,” the spokesperson added. “We have never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked.”
