TikTok to be Banned!!… On UK Government phones

A few years ago there were rumblings that the Western world would turn its back on TikTok as everyone seemed to think it was owned by the Chinese government exclusively for data farming. There was a lot of drama for a while, and then everything went quiet again.

Later on however - last December in the US, to be precise - the app was banned on official government devices in various countries all over the world.

Among others, the US, Canada, Belgium and India have banned government officials from having TikTok on their company phones and for obvious reasons, this is displeasing both China and TikTok themselves.

China has accused the US of spreading misinformation and suppressing the app, while there are reports that the White House wants its Chinese owners to sell their stakes in the company.

All this time, TikTok have strongly denied any allegations that it hands user data to the Chinese government and while this may be true, Chinese intelligence laws requires firms to help the Communist Party when requested. So in theory, TikTok could share your data with the Chinese government at the drop of an official hat.

With all of that in mind, it looks like the UK government will be joining in with the rest as, while no official comment has been made, Security Minister Tom Tugendhat has asked the National Cyber Security Centre to review the issue.

You would think that this wouldn’t be so much of an issue, but bizarrely, a lot of the UK Government Departments have TikTok accounts. The Ministry of Defence, for example, posts videos of tanks and whatnot being supplied to Ukraine. It’s really weird.

Ministers have since come under pressure from MPs to follow the likes of the US and European Commission in banning the app, while Rishi Sunak himself said the country would "look at what our allies are doing".

In light of all of this, TikTok said bans had been based on "misplaced fears and seemingly driven by wider geopolitics", adding it would be "disappointed by such a move" in the UK.

The extreme likelihood of this is that no-one’s lives will be at all effected and maybe a few interns in the Houses of Parliament will have their time allocated elsewhere. Poor things.