US government bans on Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok reveal Washington’s own insecurities and are an abuse of state power, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday.
The US government “has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries’ companies," Mao Ning said at a daily briefing.
“How unsure of itself can the US, the world’s top superpower, be to fear a young person's favourite app to such a degree?”
The White House is giving all federal agencies, in guidance issued Monday, 30 days to wipe TikTok off all government devices. The White House already did not allow TikTok on its devices.
READ MORE:
* Instagram users in US exposed to gory videos of killing and torture
* 'A common thread': Why crochet is Gen Z's new obsession
TikTok is used by two-thirds of American teens, but there’s concern in Washington that China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to try to push misinformation or narratives favouring China.
Congress and more than half of US states have so-far banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices.
KIICHIRO SATO/AP
The White House is giving all federal agencies, in guidance issued Monday, 30 days to wipe TikTok off all government devices.
Some have also moved to apply the ban to any app or website owned by ByteDance Ltd, the private Chinese company that owns TikTok and moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020.
China has long blocked a long list of foreign social media platforms and messaging apps, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Washington and Beijing are at odds over myriad issues including trade, computer chips and other technology, national security and Taiwan, along with the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US and its shooting down earlier this month.
Canada joins US in banning TikTok from Govt devices
On Monday, Canada announced it was joining the US in banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices.
“I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters after the announcement.
Canadian Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said the Chief Information Officer of Canada had determined that TikTok “presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”
“On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone,” Fortier said.
The European Union’s executive branch said last week it has temporarily banned TikTok from phones used by employees as a cybersecurity measure.
TikTok has questioned the bans, saying it has not been given an opportunity to answer questions and governments were cutting themselves off from a platform beloved by millions.
China hits out at US over TikTok ban on government devices
The TikTok building in Culver City, California. Photo: AFP
China has accused the US of overreacting after federal employees were ordered to remove the video app TikTok from government-issued phones.
On Monday, the White House gave government agencies 30 days to ensure that employees did not have the Chinese-owned app on federal devices.
The order follows similar moves by the EU and Canada in recent weeks.
A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry accused the US of abusing state power to suppress foreign firms.
"We firmly oppose those wrong actions," spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters during a news briefing on Tuesday. "The US government should respect the principles of market economy and fair competition, stop suppressing the companies and provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for foreign companies in the US.
"How unsure of itself can the world's top superpower like the US be to fear young people's favourite app like that," she added.
Western officials have become increasingly concerned in recent months about the popular video sharing app, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance.
TikTok has faced allegations that it harvests users' data and hands it to the Chinese government, with some intelligence agencies worried that sensitive information could be exposed when the app is downloaded to government devices.
The company insists it operates no differently to other social media companies and says it would never comply with an order to transfer data.
On Monday, the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Shalanda Young told agencies they had to scrub the app from all state-issued phones to protect confidential data.
The agency said the guidance marked a "critical step forward in addressing the risks presented by the app to sensitive government data".
Some federal offices - including the White House and the Departments of Defence, Homeland Security and State - have already banned TikTok from their devices.
The US Federal Chief Information Security Officer Chris DeRusha said the move emphasised the Biden administration's "ongoing commitment to securing our digital infrastructure and protecting the American people's security and privacy".
Tuesday's announcement follows the passage of legislation by the US House of Representatives in December which banned the use of TikTok on state-issued phones and gave the White House 60 days to issue agency directives.
Congressional Republicans are expected to pass further legislation in the coming weeks which would give President Joe Biden the power to ban the app nationally.
"We hope that when it comes to addressing national security concerns about TikTok beyond government devices, Congress will explore solutions that won't have the effect of censoring the voices of millions of Americans," a TikTok spokesperson told the BBC.
Canada has also imposed a new ban on the app on government devices starting from Tuesday. The decision followed a review conducted by the country's chief information officer, who ruled the app presented "an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security".
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was enough concern about security around the app to require the change.
"This may be the first step, this may be the only step we need to take," he said on Monday at a press conference near Toronto.
And the European Parliament also approved a ban on the app on staff phones, following the European Commission's move last week.
A TikTok spokesperson told the BBC that the bans had been adopted "without any deliberation" and amounted to "little more than political theatre".
- BBC
No comments:
Post a Comment