He United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken opined this Thursday that the Chinese application TikTok is a “threat” to the national security of his country that “must end one way or another.”
(It may interest you: Why is the head of TikTok speaking this Thursday before the US Congress?)
The leader of US diplomacy made these statements before a committee of the House of Representatives the same day that the CEO of TikTokShou Zi Chew, asked before another audience of the US Congress that the application in the country is not vetoed.
(We recommend reading: Who is Shou Zi Chew, the enigmatic CEO of TikTok?)
Republican Congressman Ken Buck asked Blinken if TikTok is a “threat to the security of the United States”, to which the senior official replied: “I think it is. Yeah”.
When the same legislator asked him if the application of Chinese origin should be prohibited in the United States, the foreign minister replied that “It should end one way or another. There are different ways to do it.”
“We, the Administration, and others are facing the challenge that (TikTok) poses and we are taking steps to address it,” he said.
(Be sure to read: These are the risks Western governments see in TikTok)
The United States has accused China of using TikTok as a spy tool, For this reason, it has prohibited downloading the application on government mobile phones, while Congress debates bills to veto it throughout the country.
This same Thursday, the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, warned congressmen that banning their platform would harm the economy and freedom of expression.
Chew recalled that he is a Singaporean and resides in his country, that TikTok is run by an executive team in the US and Singaporethat its headquarters are in Los Angeles (USA) and on that Asian island and that it is not available on the Chinese mainland.
(Also read: TikTok faces more problems in the world, now in Europe)
He said he was aware, however, that the fact that its parent company, ByteDance, has Chinese founders has raised questions about whether its platform could be used or become a tool of China or the Communist Party. His response to whether ByteDance has spied on Americans was more ambiguous: “I don’t think spying is the right way to describe it.”.
EFE
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