TIKTOK BAN FOR US OFFICIALS

US President Joe Biden (80) is cracking down on China spying!

All federal agency employees must delete the Tiktok app from their work phones within 30 days, the White House decided on Monday evening.

Because: The Chinese parent company ByteDance only admitted in December that it had spied on three journalists in the USA using the platform. A little later, the US Congress also voted in favor of the Tiktok ban.

Almost a week ago, the EU Commission banned its employees from using Tiktok on company cell phones or laptops.

The espionage scandal is particularly explosive because one of the reporters revealed in her research in the summer that Chinese ByteDance employees had accessed data from American users.

The US business magazine “Forbes” first reported on the espionage campaign in October. At the time, ByteDance denied everything, but launched an internal investigation. A team leader was fired. Chinese manager Song Ye, to whom the man reported, resigned.

“The misconduct of certain individuals who no longer work at ByteDance was an egregious abuse of power to obtain user data. This misconduct is unacceptable and does not reflect TikTok’s efforts to earn the trust of our users,” said TikTok spokeswoman Hilary McQuaide.

The social network has around a billion users worldwide who can share videos with each other. But a lot of content falls victim to China’s censorship if the regime in Beijing doesn’t like it. The range of clips that address the Tiananmen Square massacre or the persecution of the Uyghurs was restricted.

But videos that talk about disabilities or homosexuality are also repeatedly withheld from users.