South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has ordered all state workers and contractors to stop using the widely popular short-video app TikTok on their government-issued smartphones out of concern that the Chinese government is exploiting it to collect Americans’ personal information.
According to a news statement published by Noem’s office, “This decision is in reaction to the rising national security danger posed by TikTok due to its data collection operations on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party”
Noem, a rising Republican star who has been discussed as a prospective 2024 presidential contender, is reported as stating, “South Dakota will not participate in the information collection activities of nations that detest us.”
“The Chinese Communist Party uses data gathered through TikTok to brainwash the American people, as well as data gathered from devices that access the site.”
Republican Party rising star Noem has been considered as a potential 2024 presidential contender.
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The Post has reached out to TikTok and the Chinese authorities for comment.
TikTok, which is owned by the Beijing-based technology company ByteDance, has risen in popularity in recent years, particularly among Generation Z millennials who have abandoned Facebook and Instagram.
According to CNBC, TikTok is believed to have more than 700 million active users globally, 100 million of them are in the United States, a staggering number considering that the app had just 11 million American users in 2018.
However, the app’s management structure has alarmed members of Congress, who are concerned that the Chinese government’s dominance over its tech firms gives it access to American internet user data.
Representative Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) has called for a statewide ban on TikTok. Sunday on Fox News, he compared TikTok to “digital fentanyl” that is “addicting our children.”
Gallagher stated, “Like genuine fentanyl, it ultimately leads back to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Gallagher said, “ByteDance owns Tiktok, and the CCP controls ByteDance. This means that the CCP may track your whereabouts, watch your keystrokes, and control your news – why would we grant such authority to our principal adversary?”
TikTok has long disputed that the Chinese government uses its software to obtain personal information on Americans.
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ByteDance and TikTok have consistently refuted accusations that they undertake espionage for the Chinese government.
TikTok is in discussions with the Biden administration over a possible divestiture from ByteDance, which would allow the service to continue active in the United States despite concerns regarding user privacy.
FBI Director Christopher Wray informed legislators earlier this month that the agency had “national security concerns” over TikTok’s continued operation in the United States.
Further, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr urged the Biden administration to legally prohibit TikTok due to supposed national security dangers.
Carr told Axios, “I do not believe there is a route ahead for anything other than a prohibition.”
ByteDance, a Beijing-based technology business, owns TikTok.
Carr stated that “there is no environment in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data to have sufficient assurance that it is not returning to the [Chinese Communist Party].”
Although the FCC lacks regulatory authority over TikTok, the Republican commissioner stated that the Council on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an interagency council that evaluates foreign investment in the country, should attempt to enact a ban.
Carr wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai in June, urging them to remove TikTok from their respective app stores.
Carr’s letter referred to a blockbuster June investigation by BuzzFeed News, which cited hacked audio recordings from hundreds of meetings to show that Beijing-based ByteDance had greater access to US data than previously believed.
In a September 2021 meeting, a TikTok director referred to a ByteDance developer in China as a “master admin” who “has access to everything,” according to the report.
Reporting supplemented by Thomas Barrabi
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