From Canada to the USA to India: all the countries that ban TikTok (in the palaces of power)
What happens in the palaces of power in the US, Canada and India on TikTok
The first to raise the problem, at least publicly, that smartphone apps could represent a potential danger, if used at the highest levels, for the security of the state were the French, who about ten years ago proposed a WhatsApp beyond the Alps or at least European to impose on politicians and ministers since no one knew who else could eavesdrop on their conversations. Nothing more came of it: Spid's agony and Cie's false start , moreover, testify well what happens when the State throws itself into technologically advanced businesses, which it does not understand, does not know how to maintain and manage and which, moreover, continue to bring private individuals into question. Now the world's most popular messaging app, also used by prime ministers and presidents of the republic, is no longer in the dock, but TikTok, the social network for very young people also discovered by politicians during the electoral campaign, banned by an increasing number of countries.
CANADA DOESN'T WANT CHINESE APP
If we exclude countries such as Afghanistan and Indonesia, which ban TikTok because it is "immoral", the last, apparently only in chronological order, to distance itself from the Chinese Big Tech ByteDance software for national security reasons is Canada as it "presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy".
The penultimate one, on the other hand, was the European Commission, with a decision that had taken everyone by surprise but above all demonstrated the fragmentary decision-making among Eurobureaucrats, given that at the moment TikTok is still accepted within the other Community institutions.
COUNTRIES THAT EXCLUDE TIKTOK FROM PALACES
Among the first countries to ban TikTok, over two years ago, is China's neighbor, India . In the subcontinent, the ByteDance app had 200 million monthly active users and before the ban, that market was the largest by volume in all of South Asia.
THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN'T WANT TIKTOK
In the US, the change of tenant in the White House has not changed the policy towards social media: the hostilities began with Donald Trump and continued with Joe Biden who asked his staff members and federal employees to get rid of it.
"The Biden-Harris administration has invested heavily in defending our nation's digital infrastructure and limiting foreign adversaries' access to Americans' data," federal information security chief Chris DeRusha said in the last few hours, commenting on the new decision by the White House to ask all those who work for the country's federal agencies to uninstall TikTok from all government devices. -. This guidance is part of the Administration's ongoing efforts to protect our digital infrastructure and protect the security and privacy of the American people."
In the United States, the Chinese app cannot be on cell phones entering the Pentagon while similar decisions have been taken, nationally, by about thirty states, including Texas, Georgia, Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina, Nebraska, Ohio and New Jersey.
WHY TIKTOK SCARES MORE AND MORE COUNTRIES
Until now, the States have given the excuse of the app's poor security without however being able to demonstrate the vulnerability or, worse, that it can itself act as a Trojan horse for malicious software. More or less all the decisions taken in this sense concerned civil servants, at least as regards the highest levels and sectors most at risk of espionage. The European Commission allows employees to keep TikTok on their private mobile phone if and only if no work calls and messages circulate through that device.
AND IN ITALY?
Talk has also started in Italy: the Minister of Public Administration Paolo Zangrillo could impose on state workers the uninstallation of the Chinese TikTok app from smartphones and tablets but he has already found a wall in an early tiktoker, at least as regards the political landscape Italian (that that app discovered it late) Matteo Salvini : “Block the app? Think carefully, I am always and in any case against censorship ”, the halt of the Northern League leader, obviously conveyed in a TikTok video, aware of how much the social network helps in the electoral campaign.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/dal-canada-agli-usa-fino-allindia-tutti-i-paesi-che-vietano-tiktok-nei-palazzi-del-potere/ on Sat, 04 Mar 2023 13:35:47 +0000.