With TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew set to look earlier than US congress this week, in what many take into account to be a pivotal look that would resolve the destiny of the app within the area, TikTok has at the moment shared a new user milestone in the US, whereas additionally calling on US customers to contact their elected representatives to voice their help for the platform.
Right now, TikTok has introduced that it now has over 150 million US customers.
As per TikTok:
“We’re honored to be a home for our immensely diverse community in the United States, made up of nearly half the country’s population, including book lovers, foodies, families, emerging artists and so much more. This milestone would not have been possible without the hard work and unwavering commitment of almost 7,000 TikTok employees in the US, as well as our incredible community in the country and around the world.”
Learn as: ‘TikTok is really important, not just to users, but to the US economy too, and banning it would be a very bad thing’.
Chew himself has additionally posted a video concerning the milestone, whereas additionally calling on US customers for his or her help.
@tiktok Our CEO, Shou Chew, shares a particular message on behalf of the whole TikTok crew to thank our neighborhood of 150 million People forward of his congressional listening to later this week.
The brand new push additional underlines simply how vital the US ban risk is, with authorities officers reportedly already placing strain on TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent company, in an effort to eradicate issues associated to potential knowledge sharing.
With US/China tensions rising, particularly as China continues to publicly support Russia, amid its ongoing conflict with Ukraine, US officers have continued to sound the alarm concerning the dangers related to TikTok, which, theoretically, may share US person knowledge with the CCP, which may then put US residents in danger.
On this context, the latest strikes to ban TikTok from government staff devices make some sense – however the massive query, which could be answered this week, is whether or not common customers are additionally beneath risk from the identical course of.
And once more, that risk has now change into very current for TikTok:
“Certain politicians have raised concerns about the potential banning of our platform, which would directly affect all 150 million Americans who have embraced TikTok. To proactively address US national security concerns, we’ve taken unprecedented steps by enhancing safeguards for our US users. Over the last two years, we’ve invested $1.5 billion in setting up TikTok US Data Security and have been building a comprehensive framework to isolate protected US user data. Today, we are also proud to launch the U.S. Data Security (USDS) site aimed at providing transparency into our commitments and answering common questions around our efforts to safeguard data.”
TikTok lately mentioned that the platform is unprofitable at present as a result of quantity that it’s outlaid to handle these issues, and it’s clear that TikTok will do something that it may possibly to keep away from a ban, whereas additionally remaining beneath Chinese language possession.
On which, it might don’t have any alternative – the CCP, which must approve any spin-off of the app, is reportedly not happy with the US seeking to bully TikTok out of Chinese language possession. As such, at this stage, it appears unlikely that Chinese language officers would permit the separation of the platform from mother or father firm ByteDance.
Which leaves TikTok within the center. If the US does look to place extra strain on TikTok after this week’s look by Chew, then it could be pressured out of the market, with no different choices to take care of reference to its 150 million-strong American viewers.
That will be a large blow for the app – which already misplaced around 200 million users when India banned it again in 2020.
As such, TikTok is now pulling out all of the stops, in an effort to save lots of the platform – as a result of whereas a sell-off, prior to now, has seemingly been the worst-case situation, that will not even be an choice this time round.
I’ve maintained {that a} full ban of the app appears unlikely, purely as a result of amount of cash at stake, which might be motivation sufficient for TikTok to seek out an alternate answer.
However possibly, there really gained’t be another choice this time.
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