In this modern age, where the digital dimension we’ve created for ourselves continues to gobble up the peripheral edges of our reality, there are fears about just what sort of toll this vast communicative tool will have on society.
You see, through the digital looking glass, a number of nefarious things can occur…and China’s TikTok app appears to be doing them all.
That’s why the US House of Representatives just banned the application from Congressional phones.
The popular Chinese video app TikTok has been banned from all U.S. House of Representatives-managed devices, according to the House’s administration arm, mimicking a law soon to go into effect banning the app from U.S. government devices.
And for a scary reason…
The app is considered “high risk due to a number of security issues,” the House’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) said in a message sent to all lawmakers and staff on Tuesday, and must be deleted from all devices managed by the House.
The new rule follows a series of moves by U.S. state governments to ban TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd, from government devices. As of last week, 19 states have at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content.
The grievance with TikTok doesn’t end at their data harvesting tactics either.
The app’s output algorithms appear to be tweaked for the American audience, with TikTok feeding US users wildly dumbed-down content in relation to what Chinese users see, stoking fears that Beijing is using the app to groom American children.
