The News
France joined a string of Western governments and institutions that have banned TikTok in recent weeks, including the U.K. and New Zealand Parliaments, as well as the Dutch and Belgian governments.
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French civil service minister Stanislas Guerini tweeted that TikTok would be banned from “the professional phones of civil servants.”
Guerini said that recreational applications like TikTok lack adequate levels of data protection and cybersecurity to be used on official devices, adding that the ban would be effective immediately. Exemptions would be granted, however, for professional reasons.
Step Back
Along with several other European countries, the European Union’s Commission and Council, two of the bloc’s biggest policy-making bodies, announced last month that they would forbid the download and use of TikTok on staff devices.
The View From the US
Democrats and Republicans from the House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew on data privacy, Chinese influence, and inappropriate content for children on the platform for five hours Thursday.
“Several members remarked that Chew had united the committee in opposition to TikTok and described his answers as evasive or unsatisfactory,” Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant writes in a report of the hearing.
