New York: The House Foreign Affairs Committee has voted 24-16 in favour of banning TikTok in the US, advancing a bill that would allow US President Joe Biden to ban the Chinese short video making app in the country.
The Technological Adversaries Act, or DATA Act, directs Biden to sanction or ban TikTok nationwide if his administration finds that the Chinese firm shared American users’ data with the Chinese government.
If that data was used to surveil, hack, or censor users, Biden could impose additional sanctions against TikTok and its parent-company Bytedance, reports The Verge.
“TikTok is a modern day Trojan horse of the CCP used to surveil and exploit Americans’ personal information,” said Rep Michael McCaul (R-TX).
However, some Democrats and civil liberty groups raised objections on the bill.
Democrat Gregory Meeks (D-NY) called the bill “dangerously overbroad”.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also raised its concerns in a letter sent to McCaul.
“Congress must not censor entire platforms and strip Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression. Whether we’re discussing the news of the day, live streaming protests, or even watching cat videos, we have a right to use TikTok and other platforms to exchange our thoughts, ideas, and opinions,” said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at ACLU.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is likely to appear before the US Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23 over questions related to TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government.
Banned in India, ByteDance-owned TikTok has also been in the news for reportedly stealing US users’ data.
The Chinese short-form video app has been banned on mobile devices issued by the US House of Representatives. The House ordered staff to delete TikTok from all mobile phones.
Canada has become the latest country to ban TikTok from government-issued mobile devices.
The country joined the European Union in banning TikTok on government devices.
The European Commission late last month directed all employees to remove TikTok from their corporate devices.
The vote came after a lengthy back-and-forth on Tuesday, with Republicans repeatedly shooting down Democratic amendments meant to rein in different parts of the legislation. In a brief interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of Tuesday’s markup, McCaul said he hoped the split wasn’t the start of a broader collapse of bipartisanship on issues related to Chinese tech.
“We’ve been negotiating this for a solid month, without a whole lot of progress,” McCaul said. “The bottom line is, [Democrats are] not prepared to go forward on any measure related to TikTok. They would prefer to defer to the CFIUS process, where we want to move forward as a Congress.” McCaul was referring to a long-running security review of the risks posed by TikTok by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, has long denied any association with Beijing’s surveillance or propaganda operations. Its critics, however, point to requirements in Chinese law that require companies based in-country to comply with any and all requests from state intelligence services.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the committee’s ranking member, disputed the notion that Democrats would oppose any bill that targets TikTok. In a brief conversation with reporters on Tuesday, he said Democrats are open to “more conversation and dialogue” on a TikTok ban — but, he added, “we have to have all of the facts.”
“I don’t want to supersede CFIUS,” Meeks said. “In the meanwhile, we can be having hearings and conversations, bringing in witnesses and experts on sanctions.”
Meeks said the DATA Act was “unvetted” and had been thrust on his staff with little warning. “We could have held hearings before the markup and carefully crafted bipartisan legislation together,” Meeks said Tuesday. “Instead, my staff and I received the text of this legislation a little over a week ago, and have only had several days to review a bill that would dramatically rewrite the rules-based international economic order.”
Aside from that debate on process, Tuesday’s markup discussion revealed a widening gap in how Republicans and Democrats perceive the threat they say TikTok poses. The GOP increasingly frames the company as a willing participant in Beijing’s espionage activities — McCaul called it a “spy balloon in your phone.” But Democrats appear hesitant to ban an app that roughly 100 million Americans use each month.
“We cannot act rashly without consideration of the very real soft power, free speech and economic consequences of a ban,” Meeks said on Tuesday. He later warned his colleagues against using the tactics of “fear” to pass a TikTok ban. “I’ve seen that tactic utilized before — fear that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, without evidence or proof,” he said.
In response to the Wednesday vote, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said that a “U.S. ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide.”
“We’re disappointed to see this rushed piece of legislation move forward, despite its considerable negative impact on the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use and love TikTok,” Oberwetter added.
The DATA Act would alter a portion of U.S. law known as the Berman amendments — which allow for the free flow of “informational material” from hostile countries — to provide what McCaul called a “constitutional framework” that would let the president ban a foreign app. In 2020, TikTok invoked the Beman amendments as part of its successful court effort to block an attempted Trump administration ban.
The bill would also require the president to impose sanctions on companies with ties to Chinese-owned apps that are “reasonable [sic] believed to have facilitated or may be facilitating or contributing to” a broad slate of nefarious activities by Beijing.
On Tuesday, Meeks called that language “dangerously overbroad.” He warned it would inadvertently impose sanctions on a wide swath of U.S. and allied companies that do business with Chinese firms, including independent subsidiaries that operate outside the reach of Beijing.
The DATA Act has already prompted outside pushback. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter on Monday that urged lawmakers to oppose the bill, which it called “vague and overbroad” as well as a violation of the First Amendment. On Tuesday, progressive tech group Fight for the Future launched a “#DontBanTikTok” campaign opposing the legislation.
While McCaul’s TikTok bill is the first to pass out of committee this Congress, it’s not the only legislation percolating on Capitol Hill. In January, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) unveiled their own TikTok ban bill. And in February Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla). introduced legislation to ban the app. A previous version of that bill was backed late last year by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who now chairs the new Select Committee on China.
Gavin Bade contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The Canadian government will ban, starting Tuesday (28), federal employees from using the Chinese app TikTok on official cell phones as it poses an “unacceptable” risk to their privacy and security.
Mona Fortier, chair of the Treasury Board of Canada, the public body charged with overseeing federal employees, said in a statement that effective February 28, the app will be removed from all official cell phones.
“Users of these devices will also be blocked from downloading the app in the future. After an analysis of TikTok, the Director of Information Systems Canada has determined that it poses an unacceptable level of privacy and security risk.”
Fortier justified the measure because TikTok’s data entry and collection methods “provide considerable access to the contents of the phone”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference that while the government wants to respect Canadians’ right to freedom of expression, there are also “very important principles about data protection and security for Canadians”.
“Like many countries around the world, we are carefully considering how to ensure Canadians’ safety online. And the decision is that it is best that government teams and workers do not have access to TikTok due to security concerns,” added Trudeau.
The premier also mused that other Canadians have considered the risk TikTok poses to their security “and perhaps” will act accordingly.
Likewise, Trudeau opened the door for the government to take more measures to ensure the security of official apparatus.
The ban on the use of TikTok on official Canadian cell phones comes a few days after the European Union adopted a similar measure. The United States has already banned the use of the application on official cell phones in 2022.
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( With inputs from : pledgetimes.com )
New Delhi: Chinese short video-making app TikTok has reportedly sacked its entire India staff — about 40 employees — and February 28 will be their last working day.
According to a report in The Economic Times, the ByteDance-owned platform, banned in India in June 2020 over national security concerns, told its employees they would receive up to nine months of severance package.
However, most of the staff will only get three-month severance.
In June 2020, the government banned TikTok along with 59 other Chinese apps citing security concerns.
Since then, the country has banned over 300 Chinese apps, including WeChat, Shareit, Helo, Likee, UC News, Bigo Live, UC Browser and many more.
The Centre last week blocked over 230 apps, including 138 betting and about 94 loan apps, which were traced to Chinese links.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was recently instructed by the MHA to ban such apps, which operate through a third party link.
All these apps were found violating Section 69 of the IT Act and contained materials which were deemed as a threat to India’s sovereignty and integrity.
Meanwhile, US Senator Michael Bennett has urged Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to immediately remove TikTok from their app stores, calling it an unacceptable risk to American national security.
The US plans to ban Chinese short video-making app TikTok nationwide, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a vote next month on a bill to completely block the platform.
“As a state university system, we have an obligation to protect our research,” said Alan Levine, president and CEO of Ballad Health who chairs the BOG’s strategic planning committee.
A growing number of states and colleges have taken actions against TikTok, owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance, amid security concerns and government directives calling to restrict access to the app. It’s banned on government devices in dozens of states while colleges are seeking to block access to TikTok on Wi-Fi and school-issued devices.
Florida’s flagship school, the University of Florida, is among the first institutions in the state to make a move against TikTok by suggesting that students delete the app and discontinue its use. Some Florida officials, namely state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, are pushing for schools to make stricter efforts against the app.
“It’s very concerning having TikTok on our university campuses,” Patronis wrote in a tweet Monday. “We are the most innovative country on the planet and we are allowing this app to go unchecked. All of the Chancellors need to make this a priority, and if they don’t, Trustees should get involved.”
That message appears to be resonating with Board of Governors members who agreed Tuesday that the panel should pursue new regulations surrounding TikTok at Florida universities.
“When you think about the potential dangers to students and their data, and the potential dangers to our faculty and the work and the labor they’ve put into research, and the danger to the taxpayers of the theft of that research, all of this together means we probably need a policy statewide,” Levine said.
Actions against TikTok were not included on Tuesday’s meeting agenda. Instead, Levine informally gauged BOG members on their appetite for making a move, which was met with approval from several on the board.
Levine said he wants university leaders to help craft a statewide rule surrounding the app that can be proposed at the next regular BOG meeting. The board is slated to hold a conference call in February and a typical meeting in March.
“You could talk about the anxiety-inducing tool of conformity that TikTok has been called, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue,” said BOG member Timothy Cerio, general counsel and Chief Legal Officer of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. “But I think this is the right direction we need to go – we need to protect our intellectual material.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Public authorities in the Netherlands are being told to steer clear of TikTok amid growing concerns across the EU and U.S. that the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform poses privacy risks.
Dutch ministries and agencies are mostly following a recommendation to shun TikTok accounts and stop government communication and advertising on the platform, two government officials told POLITICO. This is despite the app’s skyrocketing popularity in the Netherlands, where it has around 3.5 million users.
The Dutch pivot away from TikTok follows advice issued by the general affairs ministry to “suspend the use of TikTok for the government until TikTok has adjusted its data protection policy” announced in November. While the recommendation resembles a recent U.S. government decision from December to ban the use of TikTok on government devices, the Dutch guidance is far more limited in scope and enforcement.
It’s the latest example of how TikTok, owned by the Beijing-headquartered ByteDance, is facing headwinds in Europe, adding to its troubles in the U.S. The firm is already under investigation for sending data on European Union users to China. One of the video app’s fiercest European critics is French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called TikTok “deceptively innocent” and a cause of “real addiction” among users, as well as a source of Russian disinformation.
Dutch officials have sought to strengthen ties with Washington in recent months as the U.S. pushes for more export controls on selling sensitive technology to China, including machines made by Dutch chips printing giant ASML. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte this month met with U.S. President Joe Biden, where they discussed how to “quite frankly, meet the challenges of China,” the U.S. leader told reporters ahead of the meeting.
The Dutch policy on TikTok, which is effectively a pause rather than a ban, is mainly targeted at stopping the use of TikTok for “media” purposes, a spokesperson for the general affairs ministry said, and doesn’t explicitly instruct government officials to delete the app from phones.
The spokesperson said it’s hard to evaluate how strictly government services have abided by the advice since the ministry isn’t monitoring separate services’ use of the app. But the two officials said the advice had triggered a clear shift away from the Chinese-owned app, in line with growing security concerns across the West.
A junior Dutch government coalition party called in November for a full ban on the app “in its current form.” Asked by reporters what he thought of this proposal, Rutte said this was “the opinion of five seats in the Dutch lower chamber.”
TikTok admitted in early November that some of its China-based employees could access European TikTok user data. It also came under intense scrutiny in the U.S. over a report in Forbes magazine in December that employees had accessed data to track the location of journalists covering TikTok.
This month, TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew visited Brussels to assuage concerns in meetings with EU commissioners including Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, Vice President for Values Věra Jourová and Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
“I count on TikTok to fully execute its commitments to go the extra mile in respecting EU law and regaining [the] trust of European regulator,” Jourová said in a warning shot at the company. There could not be “any doubt that data of users in Europe are safe and not exposed to illegal access from third-country authorities,” she said.
TikTok said in a comment that it’s open to engaging with the Dutch government “to debunk misconceptions and explain how we keep both our community and their data safe and secure.”
UPDATED: This article was updated to add TikTok’s comment.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Is there any platform that creates as much collective angst as TikTok?
For some, TikTok is just a silly video app. For others, it’s a symbol of our most potent social and political fears. What are young people engaging with? Isn’t it collecting a huge amount of data? Are they being dragged down dangerous rabbit holes? And is China spying on them?
Concerns about data privacy, hyper-personalisation and exposure to content that could be harmful are all reasonable. But sensationalist headlines, reactionary calls for stricter content moderation – or banning the app entirely – risk missing the forest for the trees.
TikTok is not some strange aberration; it’s the logical next-step on the pathway of platform capitalism that was laid down by those that came before it. It’s a product of a privatised internet that best serves applications ultimately designed not for people, but for profit.
I confess: I really like TikTok. For me, it’s become a place of joy and absurdity among the rage, horrors, and tedium of its competitors. As a digital rights and privacy advocate, admitting this feels like a dirty little secret.
The thing is, it’s possible to simultaneously hate a platform but love the people on it and the things they create.
But my experience of TikTok is likely to be completely different to yours; that’s by design. TikTok’s commitment to algorithmically curated content is one of the reasons it stands out from the rest. The “For You’” page is responsible for its popularity and profitability – but also its harm.
As with all social media, there are myriad horrendous marks against TikTok. From TraumaTok and content encouraging disordered eating and self-harm to influencer propaganda attempting to recruit Gen Z to the military, there is no shortage of reasons to worry.
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There are also plenty of examples of TikTok being used for social good. Labourers have used it to gain visibility and criticise their working conditions; it’s the home of a growing Indigenous creator community; and many young people use it to organise and amplify their voices on critical political issues.
What are we really worrying about when we worry about TikTok? Most concerns seem to be misdirected anxieties about the broader status quo of the platform ecosystem. Almost all widely used digital platforms threaten the privacy and security of users. They share information with various governments, have the capacity for cultural and ideological influence, and exploit user data for profit.
TikTok has shifted emphasis away from mass virality and toward maximum niche-ification. Once it has determined what keeps someone on the app, it takes them deep into the obscure content trenches. Perhaps they lingered on a couple of sad heartbreak videos and now they’re being bombarded with depression content, or re-watching a controversial political video led them to conspiracy theories. Wherever they end up, once there, it can be incredibly hard to get out.
This is partially why online anonymity is so important – it gives people the grace of exploration and inquiry. It allows people to make choices, change their minds, learn, and grow. TikTok doesn’t make room for this kind of internet exploration; it makes it impossible to have curiosity without consequence.
TikTok isn’t alone in using engagement and recommender algorithms to curate personalised content feeds, but it does take it to the extreme. This is profitable both because it keeps people scrolling and because there’s very little difference between being able to personalise content and personalise ads.
Because of its monumental success, other apps are attempting to follow in TikTok’s footsteps, giving us a glimpse into the current trajectory of social media. Instagram recently faced backlash when it started prioritising recommended short-form videos, and just last week, Twitter made the algorithmic feed the default. With a business model this lucrative, it’s not enough to fight TikTok alone.
Let’s go down our own rabbit hole: if you’re worried about algorithms showing people problematic content, you should be worried about targeted advertising. The logic of personalised engagement is the same. And if you’re worried about targeted advertising, you should be worried about the way data is collected for profit under surveillance capitalism. That’s what enables it.
And if you’re worried about surveillance capitalism, you should be worried about regular old capitalism. Profit is what drives companies toward invasive data collection and developing algorithms that keep people on their apps for longer.
But online spaces run for profit aren’t preordained. This is a choice, and we could make a different one. What might social networking look like if the incentive to make money was removed? What might be built if it was in the hands of the people, with the motive being connection, creativity, or community, rather than market competition?
This is not a call to apathy, but rather, to think bigger. It’s an invitation to take those concerns about TikTok and reorient them. It’s time to broaden our collective political imagination of the kind of online experiences that could be possible if we break the profit-motive stranglehold and make room for publicly owned and collectively controlled social technology.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
