- President Trump has said that he was considering banning TikTok, which he implied would punish China for the coronavirus.
- TikTok is a short-form video app especially popular among Gen Z, and it has amassed 1.5 billion downloads. Its parent is the Chinese developer ByteDance.
- US lawmakers have expressed concern over possible national security issues, and TikTok has faced accusations of censorship at the request of the Chinese government.
- The Pentagon also issued a warning in December that military personnel should delete TikTok from all devices due to "potential security risks associated with its use."
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
President Trump said that banning TikTok was "one of many" options he was considering to punish China for the coronavirus on July 7. One day earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that administration was weighing banning TikTok due to national security concerns and fear of Chinese surveillance.
TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, the highest-valued privately-held company in the world, and its data collection practices have been scrutinized due to the company's Chinese ownership, though experts told Business Insider that it's policies are similar to US apps like Facebook. A feature in Apple's iOS 14 beta recently caught TikTok accessing clipboard data on devices, reigniting the controversy. TikTok says it has disabled the feature.
Criticisms of the app go back farther than just the past few months. In September, The Guardian saw internal documents that instructed moderators to censor content that could anger the Chinese government, including mentions of Tiananmen Square or Tibetan Independence.
In a statement, TikTok said that these policies were no longer in use as of May. US lawmakers have also been critical of TikTok as a potential security risk, and Sen. Marco Rubio asked the Trump administration to investigate the app, while Sens. Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton wrote a letter to the head of national security asking for an investigation into the app as a counterintelligence risk.
Here are all the countries, companies, and organizations that have banned TikTok.
The US Navy banned TikTok from government devices in December.
On December 16, the Pentagon sent a "Cyber Awareness Message" that "identifies the potential risk associated with using the TikTok app and directs appropriate action for employees to take in order to safeguard their personal information," The Guardian reported. The message also advised military personnel to "uninstall TikTok to circumvent any exposure of personal information."
The following week, the Navy banned TikTok from government-owned devices. A Navy bulletin said that members with TikTok accounts who didn't remove the app from devices would be blocked from the Navy intranet. A Navy spokesperson told The Guardian that generally, Navy personnel are allowed to use social media apps, although sometimes specific apps thought to be security risks are banned.
The US Army had been advising members against using TikTok since mid-December.
TikTok was a tool used by the Army for reaching and recruiting Gen Z, until it was banned from government-owned devices in late September, Military.com reported.
An Army spokesperson told Military.com that TikTok "is considered a cyber threat," and that while the Army cannot ban members from using it on personal devices, it does recommend caution.
The US Air Force banned TikTok, along with other branches, in early January.
"The threats posed by social media are not unique to TikTok (though they may certainly be greater on that platform)," an Air Force spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.
Videos of jet stunts and troops jumping out of planes tend to go viral on the app, and may also pose an additional risk, the Journal reports.
The Coast Guard gave similar reasons for a ban.
A Coast Guard spokesperson told The New York Times in January: "TikTok is not an application currently used on any official Coast Guard device."
He also said that Coast Guard members go through an annual cyber awareness training.
The US Marine Corps expressed similar reasoning for a ban in January.
"This decision is consistent with our efforts to proactively address existing and emerging threats as we secure and defend our network. This block only applies to government-issued mobile devices," a spokesperson told The New York Times.
According to a letter from Sen. Chuck Schumer, the US Department of Homeland Security has also banned TikTok from its devices.
On February 22, Schumer sent a letter to TSA Administrator David Pekoske about the agency allowing TikTok use, and he cited a policy from the Department of Homeland Security the prohibits TikTok on devices, the Associated Press reported. TSA is an agency within DHS.
In February, TSA banned TikTok.
On February 23, the TSA released a statement saying a "small number of TSA employees have previously used TikTok on their personal devices to create videos for use in TSA's social media outreach, but that practice has since been discontinued," the Associated Press reported.
On June 29, India banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps.
The ban was triggered by a border clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers, where India has 20 casualties. It says the ban is about preserving "data sovereignty."
In early July, Amazon told employees to delete Amazon from their phones, before backpedaling and calling the policy an "error."
"Due to security risks, the TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email," according to an email sent to Amazon employees.
Later that day, Amazon walked back the policy in a statement to Business Insider. "This morning's email to some of our employees was sent in error. There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok," an Amazon spokesperson said.
Wells Fargo told employees to remove TikTok from company devices.
"Due to concerns about TikTok's privacy and security controls and practices, and because corporate-owned devices should be used for company business only, we have directed those employees to remove the app from their devices," a TikTok spokesperson said.
The Democratic and Republican national committees warned staff not to download TikTok because of security concerns.
An email from the DNC security team obtained by CNN read "We continue to advise campaign staff to refrain from using TikTok on personal devices. If you are using TikTok for campaign work, we recommend using a separate phone and account."
The RNC has similarly told members not to download TikTok on personal devices.