The United States Government Has Banned The TikTok App On All Devices Used By Federal Government Employees.

The House of Representatives takes a “political move that will accomplish nothing” for national security. They have passed an act to ban the Tik Tok app. No federal employees can use the app on any device.

Last week Congress approved the ban in a vote. It is a substantial move against the fastest-maturing social media forum in the world. Some members of the house express concern about user data stored in China. The Chinese government may access it. 

In the upcoming two months, many government departments will establish the regulations. The regulation seems necessary to carry out the ban. Employees of the federal government have to uninstall TikTok from any device. Unless they were using the app for purposes of law enforcement or national security.

Before this, Congress passed a bill. The bill prohibits members of the House of Representatives from using Tiktok on their smartphones. In the meantime, there has been an impulse to ban TikTok in the US. This month Senator Marco Rubio introduced a verdict to “ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.” 

After Donald Trump published an official decree in August 2020. This forbade  US companies from doing business with ByteDance. Byte Dance is the parent company of TikTok. 

In June 2021, Biden withdrew the order. This happened after the CFIUS had examined the platform’s security.

According to TikTok ambassador Brooke Oberwetter, the CFIUS agreement would “meaningfully discuss any security concerns expressed at the national and state level.”

Instead of encouraging the Authority to complete its national safety study. She stated, “We’re concerned that Congress has changed positions to restrict TikTok on nation devices—a political movement that will do little to advance national security concerns.”

It has its headquarters in China. Yet, ByteDance always tries to maintain  US customer data to be kept in Virginia data centers. And it’s backed up in Singapore.

However, political pressure increased once more after the BuzzFeed revelation in June. BuzzFeed remarked that ByteDance China headquarters had repeatedly accessed US TikTok user data between September 2021 – January 2022.

Lawmakers show concern that the Chinese Marxist party may gain sensitive user data. Further, they can use this user data to access immature users with pro-China content on its algorithmic residence page.

Besides, it is also exerting legislative stress on TikTok simultaneously. The app has seen a recent surge in gaining more than 1 billion monthly active users. The report shows a 45% growth between July 2020 and July 2022. 

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 67% of users between the generations of 13 and 18 use the app daily. Over half of Americans between 18 and 30 use the outlet.