Many countries are concerned about TikTok’s security and the platform’s ties to China. This week, the United States Congress approved a bill against ByteDance’s app.
ADVERTISEMENTThe United States took one more step towards becoming the possible first country to ban the social media app TikTok over privacy concerns.
On Tuesday, April 23, Congress approved legislation which would force the Chinese owner of the app ByteDance to sell the platform within nine months or face a ban.
Several countries have banned it on government devices, fearing that sensitive information could be exposed when the app is downloaded.
TikTok disputes accusations that it collects more user data than other social media companies and has called the bans “basic misinformation,” saying these had been decided with “no deliberation or evidence”.
TikTok is owned by the Chinese technology company Bytedance but it insists it is run independently and does not share data with the Chinese government. It is currently carrying out a project to store US user data in Texas, which it says will put it out of China’s reach.
However, many countries remain cautious about the platform and its ties to China. Western technology companies, including Airbnb, Yahoo, and LinkedIn, have also been leaving China or downsizing operations there because of Beijing’s strict privacy law, which specifies how companies can collect and store data.
Here are the countries and regions that have announced or already implemented…
