Recently, Beijing-Washington political rivalry has emerged over plans to ban the globally popular Chinese app TikTok in the United States. The US government has made it clear that Chinese owners will face sanctions if they don’t sell the social media platform.
One in three US citizens use TikTok. And it is unprecedented for the US government to impose a ban on such a popular app.
so Let’s find out why the US wants to ban the app in China:
US intelligence agencies worry that any sensitive information could be leaked if the app is used on government mobile phones or computers. The US administration claims that TikTok collects the same kind of data as other apps, but that data could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.
However, the Chinese tech company has been denying such accusations since the beginning. They claim that the app users’ information is never given to anyone else. They act in the same way as other social media in terms of protecting the privacy of personal information. Moreover, TikTok has never complied with Chinese authorities’ orders to share data.
Analysts agree that the US ban on TikTok is based on security issues, as well as the impact of China’s political, commercial and diplomatic disputes with the US.
It is said that as much as the allegations of data leakage against TikTok are of concern, the fact that it was created in China is a bigger concern. Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese-based technology companies have come under the fire of the United States for the same fault.
Washington claims that the information collected by TikTok can be used for espionage or disinformation on important US citizens or institutions. As a result, the US government has already banned the use of this app on official devices.
How the US government can prevent citizens from using TikTok
The easiest possible way to enforce a government ban would be to order TikTok to be removed from the appstores run by Apple and Google. If you do this, you can’t easily download TikTok directly from the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store.
But for those who already have the app, it will remain on their phone. To solve this problem, the US government will order to stop the update process of the app. As a result, at some point users will face problems in using the app and at some point they will lose interest in using it.
Can the US government really prevent citizens from using TikTok?
When the Indian government banned TikTok, all legitimate opportunities to download it were cut off. Moreover, Internet Service Providers (ISPS) are known to have blocked it completely. This makes it difficult to access the TikTok app from most ISPs in India.
However, even then India could not completely stop the use of TikTok. Many people continue their activities on this app using VPN, which continues to this day. So these steps may not be enough to stop TikTok.
TikTok collects our approximate location information via SIM card and IP address. If a SIM card number starts with +1, it means the user is located in the United States.
Now if a country can block TikTok from devices by verifying the location of its citizens, it is possible to completely shut down the app. However, many claim that most countries will be reluctant to adopt this method as such surveillance is expensive and quite complex.
How did China respond to this?
China has accused the US of spreading confusion and illegally suppressing TikTok. Moreover, Chinese authorities have also alleged that the US administration is being forced to remove TikTok from official devices.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said that the world’s top superpower like the United States is insecure about itself.
TikTok app owned by Chinese company ByteDance is one of the most popular short video platform which is popular among young people worldwide for creating and sharing videos. There are about 1.5 billion TikTok users in about 150 countries. Besides, the app has been downloaded at least 2.6 billion times worldwide.
But the widely used social media has been accused of collecting user data and handing it over to the Chinese government. The European Commission has already banned the use of the app, including India, the United States, and Canada, alleging this. Even, India banned the app completely in 2020.
