The US government has threatened to ban TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, from the country unless its owners divest its stakes. In a long, historic battle between the East and West, TikTok is the latest play piece, having been owned by Chinese operatives and been suspected of being too close to the Chinese Communist Party. And it seems US President Biden has had enough.
The Biden administration made its opinion on the matter clear, with an ultimatum: divest or be banned. Considering the audience in North America, that is a bold move.
And it’s only the latest of TikTok’s governmental worries. The UK has already banned TikTok from appearing on government devices, with The Guardian saying: “The UK decision follows a review of TikTok by government cybersecurity experts that began in November, and will cover ministers’ and civil servants’ work phones, but not their personal phones. [Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden says] this is a ‘proportionate move based on a specific risk with government devices’.”
However, there has been pushback from TikTok.
“If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem,” TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan told CBS News in a statement. “The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing.”
