Amazon backtracks hours after banning TikTok for employees, calls email on ban a 'mistake'

Roughly five hours after an internal email went out to employees telling m to delete Chinese origin app TikTok from ir phones, Amazon has backtracked and has called its email about  ban a 'mistake'.

"This morning's email to some of our employees was sent in error. re is change to our policies right w with regard to TikTok," Amazon emailed reporters just before 5 p.m. Eastern time. However, spokeswoman Jaci Anderson declined to answer questions about what happened.

initial internal email, which was disseminated widely online, told employees to delete TikTok, a video app increasingly popular with young people but also focus of intensifying national-security and geopolitical concerns because of its Chinese ownership. email cited security risks of app. An Amazon employee who confirmed receipt of initial email but was t authorized to speak publicly had t seen a retraction at time of Amazon's backtrack.  email read, " TikTok app is longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email." To retain mobile access to company email, employees had to delete TikTok app by end of day.

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TikTok faces heat 

Amazon is second-largest U.S. private employer after Walmart, with more than 8,40,000 employees worldwide, and moving against TikTok would have escalated pressure on app. It is banned on employee phones by U.S. military and company is subject to a national-security review of its merger history.

Indian government has recently banned TikTok and or nmobile application which have Chinese origin and has given m 3 weeks time to respond on security questions. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a TV interview earlier this week said that Trump administration is certainly looking to ban app. Pompeo said government remained concerned about TikTok and referred to administration's crackdown on Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE. A U.S. national-security ncy has been reviewing ByteDance's purchase of TikTok's precursor, Musical.ly. Moreover, Australia is also considering a ban on TikTok app by Chinese developers over security concerns. Several Australian legislators have expressed ir concern over privacy issues and a possibility of Chinese government having access to users' data.

After suffering losses that could be as high as $6 billion due to ban in India, TikTok also suspended its operations in Hong Kong. TikTok's parent ByteDance reportedly has taken action in view of Hong Kong National security law, which imposes Chinese laws in Hong Kong. Thus, companies in Hong Kong might have to share ir information with China, thus undermining user privacy and security.  

Amazon employees asked to remove TikTok from phones over 'security risks' concerns

TikTok on Amazon ban

TikTok said earlier in day that Amazon did t tify it before sending initial email around midday Eastern. TikTok also added, "We still do t understand ir concerns, adding that company would welcome a dialogue to address Amazon's issues."

TikTok has been trying to appease critics in U.S. and distance itself from its Chinese roots, but finds itself caught in an increasingly sticky geopolitical web. It recently named a new CEO, former Disney executive Kevin Mayer, which experts said could help it navigate U.S. regulators.

TikTok says it's stopping its operations in Hong-Kong, after India bans China-based app

Amazon and US government

Meanwhile, privacy groups say TikTok has been violating children's privacy, even after Federal Trade Commission fined company in 2019 for collecting personal information from children without ir parents' consent. Amazon may have been concerned about a Chinese-owned app's access to employee data, said Susan Ariel Aaronson, a professor at George Washington University and data governance and national-security expert.

China, according to U.S. government, regularly steals U.S. intellectual property. Part of Amazon's motivation with ban, w apparently reversed, may also have been political, Aaronson said, since Amazon doesn't want to alienate Trump administration. Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, are frequent targets of President Donald Trump. Bezos personally owns Washington Post, which Trump has referred to as fake news whenever it publishes unfavorable stories about him.

Last year, Amazon sued U.S. government, saying that Trump's personal vendetta against Amazon, Bezos and Post, led it to lose a USD 10 billion cloud-computing contract with Pentagon to rival Microsoft. Meanwhile, federal regulators as well as Congress are pursuing antitrust investigations at Amazon as well as or tech giants.

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(with PTI inputs)