United States: State of Virginia bans TikTok on official devices

The US state of Virginia became the latest on Friday to join the growing list of conservative-ruled territories that have banned the app. TikTok on official devices.

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An executive order issued this Friday by Governor Glenn Youngkin (Republican), prohibits state employees from downloading any application owned by Chinese companies ByteDance and Tencent, such as TikTok and WeChat, on the devices they use for work.

Several US legislators, mainly Republicans but also Democrats, have long warned against the links of both companies with the Chinese authorities and have even accused them of sharing user data with the Beijing government.

“The data (collected by) TikTok and WeChat are a communication channel with the Chinese Communist Party, and their presence is a threat to national security, the Intelligence community, and the personal privacy of every American.”the governor said in a statement.

TikTok has assured on several occasions that it does not share user data with the Chinese authorities.

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On Wednesday, the US Senate approved by consensus (without a vote) to ban TikTok on official federal government devices, although the measure must be approved by the House of Representatives and signed by US President Joe Biden to enter into force. vigor.

Several states, such as Texas, Alabama or Tennessee, have already done the same at the local 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 US president, Donald Trump (2017-2021), gave TikTok an ultimatum to transfer its operations to US companies if it did not want to. be banned in the country, something that, however, did not end up happening.

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.