Following the US House of Representatives voting in favour of a bill pushing for the TikTok ban, different opinions are now arising. In this article, we’ll have a look at the issue from the glasses of Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin. As you would expect, he is against the US House of Representatives on this matter, and calls it “bullying behaviour.”
The US House of Representatives points to this move as a protection against the theft of user data. Over the past few years, the US government has repeatedly accused TikTok of stealing US user data. They claim that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has affiliations with the Chinese government and steals this data to use against the users in the US region.
While this allegation has existed for over 4 years now, the US government hasn’t been able to back up its claims. Last year the US government made moves to ban TikTok in their region but were unsuccessful in their efforts. Now again the government is pushing to enforce a TikTok ban in their region or force the firm to break ties with ByteDance.
It’s easy to see the point that Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin is trying to make by calling this move a “bullying behaviour.” If this bill passes the Senate, it’ll force TikTok to sell to a US firm or face a ban. According to Wang Wenbin, “In the end, this will inevitably come back to bite the United States itself.”
Back in 2020, Donald Trump made a move to ban TikTok in the US but now has a different view on the matter. According to him, this move will ultimately benefit Facebook, a US competitor to TikTok. Is this bill designed to protect US citizens’ data, or gain control over TikTok?