More and more authorities around the world are banning TikTok from their employees’ cell phones: Due to security concerns, employees of all US federal agencies must now also delete the short video app from their company cell phones. You have 30 days to remove TikTok, Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in an internal directive.
The White House and the State Department as well as the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security had previously prohibited use. The US House of Representatives had already banned Tiktok on official devices in the Chamber of Congress at the end of 2022.
The app, which belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance, has long been a thorn in the side of security authorities. They fear that the government in Beijing will gain control over foreign users’ data. They can also manipulate the software’s recommendation algorithms in order to exert influence. TikTok and the Chinese government have always denied the allegations. The latter described the US ban as an abuse of state power to suppress foreign companies. The US overextended the concept of national security.
At the same time, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives was to vote on a bill on Tuesday that would allow a TikTok ban on all smartphones in the US. “Anyone who has downloaded TikTok onto their device has given the Chinese Communist Party a backdoor to all of their personal information,” committee chairman Mike McCaul warned. “It’s a spy balloon in her phone.”
The civil rights organization American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) criticized this initiative. “Congress must not censor entire platforms and deny US citizens their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression,” said ACLU Legal Counsel Jenna Leventoff. “We have a right to use Tiktok and other platforms to exchange thoughts, ideas and opinions with people in the country and around the world.”
While Tiktok’s parent company Bytedance initially didn’t respond, China’s Foreign Ministry condemned the ban in a statement: “We strongly oppose the erroneous practice of the United States of generalizing the notion of national security, abusing state power, and inappropriately targeting companies from other countries suppress.”
With one billion users worldwide, Tiktok is particularly popular with the younger generation. You can create short videos, an algorithm will suggest videos to watch.
Other states have also banned TikTok from company phones. Recently, this also includes Canada. A similar instruction was previously issued to the employees of the EU Commission. Employees of the German Federal Press Office are also not allowed to use the app on their work devices. According to a media report, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) checked possible risks of the app. The results of this investigation were not initially made public.