TikTok has really been on the bubble for a while with US lawmakers. Back in 2020, President Trump suggested he was considering a ban of the app which would force the Chinese owner, ByteDance, to either sell to an American owner or lose all of its American customers.
Since then there have been repeated reports that Chinese engineers have full access to information on American customers. On top of that we’ve also had recent incidents such as the wave of TikTok videos praising the wisdom of Osama bin Laden. And there’s the evidence that social media is bad for teenager’s mental health and potentially for their performance in school as well.
But the greater concern, and the one that has led to all the talk about banning the app, is that China could potentially use it’s control of TikTok to influence public opinion. TikTok has repeated denied this of course, but is it really so…
