The United States’ fight against TikTok appears to be reignited after Republican Senator Marco Rubio urged President Joe Biden to block the ByteDance application within the United States.
Rubio’s pronouncement comes after the Chinese government acquired a stake in a key subsidiary of ByteDance, the creator of the most popular social network of the moment.
USA vs TikTok
The Donald Trump administration launched a ‘war’ against TikTok that President Joe Biden stopped in June of this year when he withdrew executive orders to ban new downloads from the social network, as well as WeChat.
However, the debate on the role of the Chinese government within the large private technology companies was once again on the table, so Rubio showed his interest in resuming the fight against applications.
“Beijing’s aggressiveness makes it clear that the regime sees TikTok as an extension of the party-state, and the United States must treat it that way,” he said in a statement retrieved by Reuters.
Likewise, the senator asserted that “establish a framework of standards that must be met before a high-risk foreign application is allowed to operate on US telecommunications networks and devices. “
Given this, the United States Department of Commerce is in a review ordered by Biden to address the security concerns raised by those applications and others.
TikTok denies relationship with China
Through a report to Reuters, TikTok asserted that the social network is targeted “By an executive team in the United States and Singapore,” adding that “The referenced China-based subsidiary of ByteDance Ltd. does not own TikTok.”
It is important to say that, according to the company itself, TikTok is not available in China.
For his part, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Zhao Lijian, dismissed the accusations of “political manipulation” from a press conference in which he assured that American politicians seeking to attack China do not take into account that they are “destined to be swept into the garbage dumps of history.”
What is the relationship with ByteDance?
While China is not part of TikTok, Reuters notes that within the records cCorporate It is noted that the eastern government has a stake and seat on the board of ByteDance, a situation that took place on April 30.
The foregoing casts doubt on the influence that the government of Beijing will have within the technology company that continues to receive regulations in the world.
However, the government’s share is 1 percent within Beijing ByteDance Technology, as well as some licenses for Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and the Toutiao news aggregator, according to corporate information app Tianyancha.
In addition, according to Reuters, this participation andIt is held by WangTouZhongWen (Beijing) Technology, which is owned by three Chinese state entities, including a fund backed by the country’s main Internet watchdog, the China Cyberspace Administration (CAC), data from China shows. government shareholders.
China has a history against it, since the government owns shares in various technology companies, which undoubtedly calls into question its influence within them at a time when the industry seeks to protect security over privacy and user information.
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