With TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew set to seem earlier than US congress this week, in what many take into account to be a pivotal look that would determine the destiny of the app within the area, TikTok has in the present day shared a brand new person milestone within 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 house for our immensely numerous group in the USA, made up of practically half the nation’s inhabitants, together with e-book lovers, foodies, households, rising artists and a lot extra. This milestone wouldn’t have been doable with out the laborious work and unwavering dedication of nearly 7,000 TikTok workers within the US, in addition to our unbelievable group within the nation and all over the world.”
Learn as: ‘TikTok is absolutely vital, not simply to customers, however to the US financial system too, and banning it might be a really dangerous factor’.
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 your complete TikTok group to thank our group 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 language father or mother firm, with a view to remove issues associated to potential knowledge sharing.
With US/China tensions rising, particularly as China continues to publicly help Russia, amid its ongoing battle with Ukraine, US officers have continued to sound the alarm concerning the dangers related to TikTok, which, theoretically, might share US person knowledge with the CCP, which might then put US residents in danger.
On this context, the latest strikes to ban TikTok from authorities workers units make some sense – however the large 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 grow to be very current for TikTok:
“Sure politicians have raised issues concerning the potential banning of our platform, which might immediately have an effect on all 150 million People who’ve embraced TikTok. To proactively handle US nationwide safety issues, we have taken unprecedented steps by enhancing safeguards for our US customers. During the last two years, we have invested $1.5 billion in organising TikTok US Knowledge Safety and have been constructing a complete framework to isolate protected US person knowledge. Right now, we’re additionally proud to launch the U.S. Knowledge Safety (USDS) web site aimed toward offering transparency into our commitments and answering frequent questions round our efforts to safeguard knowledge.”
TikTok lately mentioned that the platform is unprofitable at current because of the quantity that it’s outlaid to handle these issues, and it’s clear that TikTok will do something that it may to keep away from a ban, whereas additionally remaining beneath Chinese language possession.
On which, it could haven’t any alternative – the CCP, which must approve any spin-off of the app, is reportedly not joyful 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 enable the separation of the platform from father or mother 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 compelled 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 round 200 million customers 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 state of affairs, that won’t even be an choice this time round.
I’ve maintained {that a} full ban of the app appears unlikely, purely because of the sum of money at stake, which might be motivation sufficient for TikTok to search out another answer.
However possibly, there really gained’t be an alternative choice this time.
