Big blow to TikTok, US government banned it

Chinese video app TikTok has been banned for government employees in America. Employees will not be able to use TikTok on smartphones provided by the US government. The Committee of House Administration (COA) has given this information to the staff. TikTok’s app is being considered a big risk for cyber security in America.

COA has told the staff that they have to immediately remove this app from their handsets. If they do not do this they may get into trouble. This ban is not limited to COA only. This will apply to all organizations and agencies under the US government. TikTok is a popular social media app in many countries. However, this app of Chinese firm ByteDance is continuously facing difficulties. The main reason for this is that ByteDance follows the Chinese government’s policy regarding data storage, privacy and some other issues.

TikTok has also been accused of misusing users’ data and other sensitive information. In India, the central government last year permanently banned about 60 Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat. Earlier, TikTok and some other apps were banned. After this, the government had sought answers from all such app companies on the method of collecting users’ data and its use. In Russia too, the government had imposed fines on social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook and Twitter last year. In this regard, a Moscow court had said that this fine has been imposed on these foreign tech companies for not removing such content from their platforms which the government has declared illegal.

The worldwide popular video sharing platform YouTube has been facing tough competition from TikTok for the last few years. This app has about one billion monthly users. To compete with TikTok, about two years ago YouTube started the Shorts feature with videos up to one minute long. It has more than 1.5 billion monthly users. To benefit the creators, YouTube has started a new way of giving more money from YouTube Shorts. Its aim is to compete with TikTok.