White House pushes ahead with plans to ban Tiktok ‘in weeks’
Chinese social media platform Tiktok could be banned in the US in a matter of weeks, after the White House last night said it was reviewing “national security risks” related to the app.
Bytedance-owned Tiktok and other Chinese apps have been accused by US officials of harvesting user data and sharing it with Beijing’s government. Tiktok denies the allegations and has hired an army of more than 35 lobbyists to improve its image with the Trump administration.
But Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows yesterday said moves to limit Tiktok’s presence in the US could come within weeks, as global relations with China continue to sour.
“There are a number of administration officials who are looking at the national security risk as it relates to Tiktok, We Chat and other apps that have the potential for national security exposure, specifically as it relates to the gathering of information on American citizens by a foreign adversary,” said Meadows.
“I don’t think there’s any self-imposed deadline for action, but I think we are looking at weeks, not months.”
Tiktok is one of the world’s most popular apps, and upwards of 1.5bn downloads around the globe.
Earlier this month, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the US was “certainly looking at” banning a slew of Chinese social media apps including Tiktok over national security concerns, but offered no further details.
In a statement yesterday, Tiktok said: “We are fully committed to protecting our users’ privacy and security.”
“Tiktok has an American chief executive, a chief information security officer with decades of US military and law enforcement experience, and a growing US team that works diligently to develop a best-in-class security infrastructure,” the statement said.
The company recently appointed former Disney boss Kevin Meyer as its new chief executive, and last week pulled out of Hong Kong in response to a new security law that hands China sweeping powers over the city.
Tiktok added that its US user data is stored in Virginia and Singapore, with strict controls on employee access. “These are the facts,” the company said.
Last month India’s government banned Tiktok and dozens of other Chinese apps, claiming they were “prejudicial to [the] sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, [and] security of state and public order”.
It comes as the UK government this week made the landmark decision to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G infrastructure over concerns technology made by the firm could be used for state spying in Beijing.
Huawei has repeatedly denied the claims, and maintains that it is a privately-owned company.
The move was widely signalled as fracture of relations between the UK and China, with Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to Britain, warning that the UK would “have to bear the consequences” if it treated China “as an enemy”.