Washington: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said that the United States of America is “certainly looking” at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.
On June 29, India banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, CamScanner and UC Browser, stating that they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country.
Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News that he and President Donald Trump are taking the reports seriously after the host informed him that India has already banned TikTok and Australia is considering doing so.
“We are taking this very seriously and we are certainly looking at it. We have worked on this very issue for a long time, whether it’s the problem of having Huawei technology in your infrastructure — we’ve gone all over the world and we are making real progress getting that out — we had declared ZTE a danger to American national security,” Pompeo said.
“With respect to Chinese apps on people’s cellphones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right too,” he added.
He said he was going to warn Americans to be cautious of using TikTok and that it means putting their private info “in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”
However, Byte Dance, the owner of the app, is trying to distance itself from its Chinese identity and has announced to withdraw from Hong Kong citing the new security law imposed.
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