Day after day, the Chinese apps are beheld by the scepticism. India’s move to ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, has made the many other countries to start thinking about their nation’s data security and privacy. The Gulwan Vally incident is apparently going to cost China a hefty price. Now the many other nations are sorting out plans to strengthen their defence protocols and shunning the Chinese apps over data piracy problems.
Yes, the countries around the globe like the US and Australia are cynical about the Chinese app TikTok.
On July 6th, the United States reports that it is also ‘looking’ forward to ban TikTok along with many other Chinese social sharing platforms.
As reported by Reuters, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State elucidated in an interview with Fox News that,
“I don’t want to get out in front of the President (Donald Trump), but it’s something we’re looking at.”
India had made a sharp move by banning 59 Chinese apps on the grounds of influencing people unfairly over sovereignty and integrity of the nation, thereby promoting defence of the country’s security and public order. This robust payback to China is now attracting many more countries to focus on the cybersecurity issues stipulated by India over these Chinese social media apps.
Those banned apps, which include Bytedance’s TikTok, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s UC Browser and Tencent Holdings LTD’s WeChat, face the wrath of the countrymen in the last few weeks as a retaliation to a border clash with China.
Besides India, the US is not the only country where TikTok is staring at an uncertain future. The Australian government is also looking over the buzzing need for data protection across the country. On the ground of the nation’s utmost data security, the Bytedance owned short video app, TikTok is facing the heat and maybe halted across Australia too. Chinese spying impulse in the pandemic that struck the world, is urging countries to cut off the Chinese apps from the digital market.
It is also reported that there are curative plans and proposals on the way to pull out the short video sharing platform before the execution of Foreign Interference through a senate inquiry on Social Media applications. This is due to the ripple of fears that are propagating across the nations over data breaching methods of Chinese apps in Beijing.
The top-rated TikTok app is used by more than 1.6 million people across Australia. TikTok attracts more youngsters of the age group 16-24 to record short videos of themselves just to earn fame and vogue in a short period.
Jenny McAllister, Committee chair Senator, told the reporters that she hopes that the Chinese originated TikTok app would agree with the Australian government’s plea for their utmost cooperation in an investigation.
She also mentioned that Australians would hear the final decision from the authorities soon. And added that the committee had to work on with the stakeholders by creating an exclusive forum to discuss curatively about the current issues, the boundaries involved, and what is approved and not approved in this kind of matters concerned.
The Herold Sun daily also reported that earlier this year the app was banned due to defence issues by the Australian Defence Force.
Following persistent cyber attacks from a foreign actor, who is believed to be from China, The Scott Morrison government last week assigned AUS$1.35 billion of its total AUS$270 billion from defence expense program towards national cyber-security facilities. There were also plans to allocate AUS$270 billion (US$186 billion) on its military and defence spending over the next decade that is nearly up by 40% more from the AUS$195 billion promised over its previous strategic review way back in 2016. This is due to the ongoing tensions that are being caused by China by imposing across the Indo-Pacific regions.
