Not to sound the alarm or anything, but has the US government banned TikTok? We have some unfavorable news if you work for the US government and enjoy making or watching TikTok videos.
The staff has been informed by the Committee on House Administration (COA) that the app is no longer permitted to be installed on House-managed mobile endpoints.
The government informed its staff via email that “the Office of Cybersecurity has declared the TikTok mobile application to be a high risk for consumers due to a variety of security vulnerabilities.”
Has the US government banned TikTok?
Anyone working in the lower chamber must remove the app from their devices right away. Failing which they run the danger of hearing from the COA Office of Cybersecurity.
Soon, the ban will apply to other US federal agencies as well. A more thorough ban prohibiting the installation of the now-famous app on any device under federal management is coming. It is included in the $1.66 trillion recent omnibus spending package. The approval of which is currently pending from President Biden.
TikTok is now regarded as the top social media platform in the globe because of its recent surge in popularity. However, it is owned and run by the Chinese software giant ByteDance. And given China’s stance on human rights, data management, and privacy, it quickly came under scrutiny from the American government.
As a result, former president Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2020 declaring TikTok to be a “threat”. And thus, prohibiting US businesses from doing business with the app.
The Trump administration even attempted to force the company to sell its US operations to a local buyer at the time. This was in an effort to retain the data collected on-premises and safeguard it from potential exfiltration by the Chinese government.
ByteDance acknowledged earlier this month that its staff had examined user data belonging to journalists in an effort to determine who had leaked a specific set of facts. All this while both the business and the Chinese government denied any improper treatment of the data.
Additionally, the business acknowledged that Chinese employees had access to US user data last summer.
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