There is a threat of a US ban on TikTok, TikTok responds

There is a threat of a US ban on TikTok. The Biden government is demanding that the Chinese owners of the app sell their interests. If they don’t, the US will issue a TikTok ban. TikTok has now responded.

TikTok ban

The Biden administration is demanding that TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their interests. This is reported by The Wall Street Journal. The US wants the founders of TikTok – who still have twenty percent in shares – to sell their shares in TikTok, otherwise a US ban on the app will follow.

We previously wrote, for example, that our House of Representatives is concerned about TikTok. For example, a number of parties want TikTok to be banned on the phones of government officials and some parties even advocate a total ban. The app could gain access to personal data of users in Europe.

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What concerns are there?

The great fear of TikTok is mainly caused by the potential interference of the Chinese government. TikTok is being developed by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company. In addition to managing the app, they also design, create and develop the algorithms of TikTok. It is known that the Chinese government would like to have access to the latter. TikTok denies that they also provide this access.

However, ByteDance also makes other apps that must comply with Chinese censorship laws and about 300 TikTok employees were previously active for the Chinese state media. So there could be a potential security risk.

Response from TikTok

In The Wall Street Journal, TikTok has responded. They said: “If protecting national security is the goal, a sale will not solve the problem: a change of ownership would not impose new restrictions on data flows,” a TikTok spokesperson told the business newspaper.

Still, Bloomberg reports that TikTok is indeed thinking about splitting off from ByteDance. This is partly because TikTok’s American activities can be worth more than 40 billion dollars. So it remains to be seen what exactly will happen.

Do you use TikTok? What do you think of the concerns of the United States? Let us know in comments below this article.