TikTok has finally shut down in the USA and disappeared from the Google Play Store and App Store. There was several news coming from the past few days about Elon Musk taking the US charges of TikTok, but it seems nothing has been finalized yet and the Bytedance-owned company has to shut down its operations after the US Supreme Court upheld a new law.
The Chinese short-for video platform voluntarily shut down its services in the USA. The FBI Director Chris Wray mentioned the national security risk. The risk to national security is that TikTok willingly does everything that the Chinese government asks them to do and sells USA data to the rival country. The FBI director says, “An entity affiliated with the Chinese government owns 1% of a ByteDance subsidiary, Douyin Information Service and it has no bearing on ByteDance’s global operations outside of China, including TikTok.”
The US users when opening the app on Saturday read notifications, We regret that a US law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable.”
Another message reads, “We’re working to restore our service in the US as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support. Please stay tuned.”
The US Congress passed a law last year and gave the Chinese apps the time until January 19. The law asked Tiktok either to sell their US rights to any other company or be cut off from the US. However, the company challenged the law in court but was rejected by the Supreme Court on Friday.
The FBI’s Wray has said that US operations of TikTok raise severe security concerns in the country as the Chinese government could influence the users or control their devices with the help of the recommendation algorithm of TikTok. However, Tiktok urges that it would never sell or share US data with the Chinese government as the company is incorporated in California and Delaware and hence abide by US laws and regulations.
Other reports claim that Elon Musk bought the rights to TikTok but nothing has been confirmed from the company or Elon Musk. Not just the US, other countries including India, New Zealand, Norway, Netherlands, and many more have also banned TikTok in the past. India banned TikTok in 2020 due to national security concerns and a military clash with China. The ban has been made permanent in 2021.
Get latest Tech and Auto news from Techlusive on our WhatsApp Channel, Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram and YouTube.
