Why US Threatened To Ban Tiktok?

Contents

If you’re a Tiktok user, you may have heard about the app being threatened with a ban in the US. But why is this happening? In short, it’s due to concerns about the app’s Chinese ownership and its data security practices. In this blog post, we’ll dive deeper into why the US is threatening to ban Tiktok and what it means for users.

Why US Threatened To Ban Tiktok

The Biden administration has demanded that the Chinese owners of TikTok divest their stake in the video-sharing app or risk a US ban. This is due to concerns that Tiktok hoovers up huge amounts of data on its users, including biometric information and location data. There are fears that this information could be shared with the Chinese government, which has raised national security concerns.

Talks between Tiktok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) have been ongoing for more than two years without a resolution. CFIUS has raised security concerns about Tiktok’s links to China, and it is worried that the Chinese government might use national security laws to pressure Tiktok or its parent company, ByteDance, into handing over the personal data of Tiktok’s US users to Beijing.

Tiktok’s chief executive officer, Shou Zi Chew, will testify before Congress on March 23 about the company’s data security practices. He will face questions about the company’s links to the Chinese Communist Party and its impact on children’s privacy.

If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,

What Does This Mean for Users?

If Tiktok is banned in the US, it means that users will no longer be able to access the app. This could be a huge blow to the app’s popularity, as it currently has over 100 million users in the US alone. It’s unclear at this point what the timeline for a ban would be or if it would even happen. TikTok has announced a plan that it says would protect user data from any transfers to China, but it remains to be seen if this will be enough to satisfy US regulators.

Final Words

The threat of a TikTok ban in the US is a result of concerns about the app’s Chinese ownership and data security practices. Talks between Tiktok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) have been ongoing for more than two years without a resolution. Tiktok’s chief executive officer will testify before Congress about the company’s data security practices, but it’s unclear at this point if this will be enough to prevent a ban. If a ban does happen, it could have a huge impact on the app’s popularity and user base.