TikTok on US government devices 30 days to stop it

105
3
TikTok on US government devices 30 days to stop it

FILE -- The TikTok logo is seen on a cell phone in Boston on October 14, 2022. The White House is giving federal agencies 30 days to wipe TikTok off all government devices, as the Chinese-owned social media app comes under increasing scrutiny in Washington over security concerns. AP Photo Michael Dwyer, File ASSOCIATED PRESS The White House is giving US federal agencies 30 days to remove Chinese-owned social media app Tiktok from all government-issued mobile devices due to growing concerns about security. Congress, the White House, and more than half of the U.S. have already banned TikTok because of concerns that China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to push misinformation or narratives favoring China. The U.S. armed forces have banned the app on military devices, and the European Union's executive branch has temporarily banned TikTok from employee phones.

More than two-thirds of American teens use TikTok, owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. It has been targeted by critics who claim that the Chinese government could access user data, such as browsing history and location.

China believes that the bans reveal Washington's own insecurities and are an abuse of state power.

The FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China's authoritarian government.

There are concerns that the company is sending millions of user data to China, in violation of stringent European privacy rules.

There has been concern about TikTok's content and whether it harms teens mental health.

In 2020, President Donald Trump and his administration tried to ban dealings with TikTok s owner, force it to sell its U.S. assets and remove it from app stores. The courts blocked Trump's attempts to ban TikTok, and President Joe Biden rescinded Trump's orders after taking office, but ordered an in-depth study of the issue. The planned sale of TikTok's U.S. assets was shelved.

The bipartisanship of the app has been the subject of bipartisanship in Congress. Congress passed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act in December as part of a sweeping government funding package. The legislation allows for the use of TikTok in certain cases, including national security, law enforcement and research purposes.

House Republicans are expected to move forward Tuesday with a bill that would give Biden the power to ban TikTok nationwide. The legislation proposed by Rep. Mike McCaul looks to circumvent the challenges that the administration would face in court if it moves forward with sanctions against the social media company.

TikTok questioned the bans, saying it had not been given an opportunity to answer questions and governments were cutting themselves off from a platform beloved by millions.

According to TikTok spokesman Brooke Oberwetter, the ban on federal devices passed in December without any deliberation, and has served as a blueprint for other world governments, according to the U.S. announcement. These bans are nothing more than political theater.