US Senate approves by consensus to ban TikTok on official devices

The Senate of USA approved this Wednesday by consensus (that is, without a vote in between) to prohibit the application TikTok on the official devices of federal government employees, although the rule must be approved in the House of Representatives to become law.

The decision comes after several lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have suggested that data collected by the popular short video app may find its way into the hands of the Chinese government.

LOOK HERE: TikTok again: the controversial Chinese app worries the United States again

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company bytedancehas assured on several occasions that it does not share data from its users with the authorities of the Asian country.

The rule approved today by the Upper House would prevent the download of the application on any device used for work purposes by federal government officials.

Several states, such as Texas, Alabama or Tennessee, have already done the same at the state level, while territories such as Indiana have filed lawsuits against ByteDance for allegedly allowing Chinese espionage.

In 2019, and as part of his strategy to increase pressure on China, the then president of the United States, Donald Trump, gave TikTok an ultimatum to transfer its operations to US companies if he did not want to be banned in the country, something which, however, did not end up happening, and to this day the application remains Chinese property.

MORE INFORMATION: USA: Maryland government asks to stop using TikTok for fear of cyberattack

TikTok has more than 100 million users in the United States and has become one of the most popular social networks in the world in a short time, especially among teenagers.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.