The U.S. House Representatives administration arm has joined states to ban the use of TikTok in official devices, compounding the Chinese video app trouble in the United States. The short-form video app was banned from all House of Representatives-managed devices, according to an email sent to lawmakers on Monday.
The decision follows other moves by states and lawmakers to curtail the use of TikTok by government officials. Earlier this month, Senator Maco Rubio introduced “the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party, or ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act,” a bill aimed at stopping TikTok’s operation in the U.S.
The House’s administration arm decision has come while the bill, which has gained bipartisan support, is yet to be passed by the Congress.
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“The Office of Cybersecurity has deemed the TikTok mobile application to be a high risk to users due to a number of security risks,” the Committee on House Administration said in an email to lawmakers on Monday, adding that it must be deleted from all devices managed by the House.
The message to staff said anyone with TikTok on their device would be contacted to remove it, and they are not allowed to reinstall it.
The recent uptick in TikTok’s apathy is a continuation of what started in 2020 under former President Donald Trump. The U.S. authorities said that TikTok poses a national security threat. The concern hangs on the possibility that the Chinese military could harvest private data of American TikTok’s users for intelligence operations.
The short-form video app is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which, like other companies in China, is under the control of the government.
Efforts by states and the Congress to ban it intensified early this month after the FBI director Chris Wray warned that TikTok could be exploited for espionage by the Chinese government. Wray said that the Chinese Communist Party’s authority over all Chinese companies “allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.”
As of last week, in addition to earlier decision by the Congress prohibiting the installation of TikTok on government-owned devices,19 states have at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices,
Also, the $1.66 trillion omnibus spending bill, passed last week to fund the U.S. government through to Sept. 30, 2023, includes a provision to ban the app on federally managed devices, and will take effect once President Joe Biden signs the legislation into law, per Reuters.
“With the passage of the Omnibus that banned TikTok on executive branch devices, the CAO worked with the Committee on House Administration to implement a similar policy for the House,” a spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
The growing apathy despite TikTok’s assurances that China does not have access to the data of American users, signals a potential major problem in the company’s U.S. operation.
The Statement Release by TikTok
TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy to people around the world. This mission is made possible by the critical work our trust and safety team does each day to prevent, detect, and remove harmful content and behavior from the platform. Our goal is to keep TikTok a welcoming, enjoyable place for self-expression, connection, and entertainment. With that in mind, we’re making improvements to how we’re organized internally to further promote a safe and secure platform for our community.
Bolstering compliance and security in the US
As we continue to act on our commitment to the security of our platform, we’re creating a Trust & Safety team within US Data Security (USDS) to build further trust and confidence in the protection of US user data and compliance. This team will be led by TikTok’s current Head of US Safety, Eric Han, who is taking on a new role as Head of USDS Trust and Safety. Several of our existing US Safety teams, such as our legal policy team and threat intelligence team, will be reorganized into the USDS Trust and Safety team.
The newly created USDS Trust and Safety team will work on compliance, safety strategies, and moderation for content involving US users’ private data. Our Global Trust and Safety team will continue to develop global safety policies for the platform and oversee the moderation of content that does not involve US users’ private data globally. Content policies and strategies developed by our global team will be reviewed and approved by USDS to ensure compliance with protocols being developed with the U.S. Government.
Reinforcing our Global Trust and Safety team
At the same time, we’re combining forces between the rest of our US Safety team and our Global Trust and Safety Team to deliver on our shared mission to protect people from harm, promote platform integrity, and foster a place that brings people joy. By bringing together the talents of our teams, we aim to create even more effective safeguards for our global community, with increased people power and more seamless handling of potentially harmful content, issues, and events globally.
As one global Trust and Safety team, we will work in unison to build policies, processes, and systems that protect against harm and promote authenticity, diversity, and, above all, safety. Together, we will have over 40,000 talented safety professionals dedicated to keeping TikTok safe.
At TikTok we’re focused on supporting the unique cultures and experiences of people on our app. Toward that goal, we’re also introducing our Head of Country Policy whose team will work to ensure our global policies meet the needs of the local communities we serve around the world, including the US. TikTok’s Director of US Policy, Tara Wadhwa, will move into this role, bringing more than a decade of experience in human rights, policy development and implementation to her leadership of this team.
There’s no finish line when it comes to protecting people. We believe these changes will put us in a better position to tackle today’s challenges, prepare for next year’s threats, and ultimately keep bringing joy, entertainment, and connection to people around the world.