It’s official. TikTok has become a political football.
The surging social media app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., is ensnared in the escalating tensions between China and its global rivals. Last week, India banned TikTok along with dozens of other Chinese apps, citing national security concerns. And on Monday during a Fox News interview, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned for the first time that the Trump administration is "certainly looking at” banning TikTok and other Chinese apps, warning of data-privacy issues. President Donald Trump echoed those statements on Tuesday.
TikTok has said it keeps user data securely in the United States with backups in Singapore, and that it has never provided data to the Chinese government. In a further effort to calm stateside angst, TikTok hired former Walt Disney Co. executive Kevin Mayer this year as its chief executive officer.