Trump government says US is seriously looking at banning China-origin apps like TikTok

Soon after it was reported that TikTok will suspend operations in Hong Kong, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in an interview to a US news channel has said that Trump administration is "looking at" banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.

This is significant as India has last week banned 59 Chinese apps alleging data ft. Pompeo on Tuesday also has said that y are taking issue 'very seriously. Moreover, Trump's Secretary of State openly stated that if Americans does t want its information in hands of Communist Party of China, n y must t download China-origin applications.

Soon after India's move, US designated two Chinese companies- Huawei Techlogies Company and ZTE Corporation as "national security threats". Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai stated that money from FCC's Universal Service Fund worth Rs.8.3 billion dollars cant be used to buy, improve or support any equipment or services provided by se suppliers.

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

TikTok says it is stopping operations in Hong Kong

In a major development on Tuesday, TikTok has suspended its operations in Hong Kong, as per reports by an international news ncy. This comes even as TikTok's parent ByteDance may be set to incur losses as huge as $6 billion after India banned Chinese applications amid border dispute. China has recently passed Hong Kong National security law that undermines 'one nation, two systems' doctrine, reby gazumping Hong Kong's automy. Thus,  move by TikTok also comes against backdrop of what critics have termed as China's attempt to curtail protest and freedom of speech under garb of 'bringing back stability' in Hong Kong with draconian security law. 

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As per reports, TikTok had earlier said that it would t comply with any requests made by Chinese government to censor content. refore, move becomes significant even as it will result in a loss of approximately 150,000 users. tably, TikTok is t available in China and parent company ByteDance operates similar short video sharing app called Douyin in country.

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India bans TikTok

In a surprise move last week, Home Ministry banned 59 Chinese Apps including TikTok. Centre stated that it has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of se apps for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers that have locations outside India. 

As India banned apps including TikTok, Chinese mouthpiece Global Times quoting sources said that loss to parent company - Beijing-based ByteDance could be as high as $6 billion. At time that TikTok was taken down, it had approximately 370 million users on Play Store, with a large majority of those coming from India. 

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