CHINA: China’s foreign ministry stated that due to Washington’s securities, the ban on the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, TikTok, is an abuse of state power. A long list of foreign social media platforms and messaging apps banned by China as well, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
The White House has announced that it will give all federal agencies 30 days to erase TikTok from all government devices as per the guidance issued on Monday. Concerns brew as China has the potential to extract private user data or implement misinformation or narratives in favour of China. More than half of US states and Congress have banned TikTok from mobile devices issued by the government.
Both Washington and Beijing are in a tense position with respect to a plethora of issues concerning trade, computer chips, and other technology, and Taiwan. Canada announced on Monday that it would join the US in banning the app from all government-issued mobile apps.
TikTok has been disturbed by the ban, highlighting that it has not been given the chance to justify itself and that these governments have been banning the app that is adored by millions around the world.
Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, mentioned in a daily briefing on Tuesday, that the US “has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries’ companies,” inquiring, “How unsure of itself can the US, the world’s top superpower, be to fear a young person’s favorite app to such a degree?”
“I suspect that as the government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones, many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday.
Mona Fortier, Canadian Treasury Board President, mentioned that the Chief Officer of Canada has reinstated that TikTok “presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”
“On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone,” Fortier added.
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