Hugely popular video app TikTok could be banned in Europe as well as the US, according to remarks made by the president of the European Commission.
TikTok is also under two separate EU investigations, and President Biden last week signed a bill which would see the app banned in the US within nine months unless it is sold to an American company …
TikTok already facing US ban
Last month, the House voted overwhelmingly to either ban TikTok from the US, or to force the sale of the app to an American-owned company.
Senators had seemed less convinced of the need for the legislation, so the Department of Justice pushed the sale option rather than the ban. President Biden last week signed off on the bill, which gives Chinese owner ByteDance up to nine months to sell to a US company – though that deadline could be extended to 12 months.
The credibility of the claimed national security risks were thrown into some doubt by a seemingly ‘interesting’ source, but by that point the initiative seemed to have gained sufficient momentum that it was going to happen anyway.
TikTok could be banned in Europe too
Politico reports that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the “danger” of the app, and said that an EU ban had not been ruled out.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hinted that banning TikTok in the European Union is an option, during a debate this evening in Maastricht, featuring parties’ lead candidates for the bloc’s 2024 election.
“It is not excluded,” von der Leyen said, after the moderator referred to the United States, where TikTok faces a national ban unless it is sold by its owner, ByteDance. She immediately added that the Commission was “the very first institution worldwide to ban TikTok on our corporate phones.”
“We know exactly the danger of TikTok.”
TikTok is currently being investigated by the EU for possible breaches of the law, including a scheme to use gift vouchers to reward users for watching videos – which may fall foul of a prohibition on features intended to increase the addictiveness of app use by children.
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