Canada is not alone. Here are some other countries that have moved to restrict or ban TikTok at home.
Tiktok has been banned in India for more than two years.
The move came after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a border clash with Chinese troops in the Himalayas on in June, 2020. Tensions spiked between the two countries, and India imposed bans on more than 50 Chinese apps, including TikTok and messaging app WeChat.
At the time, Forbes estimated that TikTok may suffer a loss of up to $6 billion as a result of the ban from its largest market outside of China.
Congress in December passed a spending bill that included a TikTok ban on government devices. More than two dozen states have also implemented similar restrictions.
The app has had a tumultuous relationship with American governments. In 2020, President Trump threatened to block new downloads of TikTok within the United States, calling it a threat to national security. The ban never came into effect.
TikTok has gone to great lengths tried to assure Congress the platform is not a threat. Its CEO Shou Zi Chew met with lawmakers in Washington this month to assuage concerns, but it was unclear whether his efforts would have an effect on moves to ban the app on official devices.
Taiwan has banned TikTok on government devices and is mulling a nationwide ban amid rising tensions with Beijing.
The government has looked to India as a case study of the efficacy of outright banning TikTok, but has drawn no concrete conclusions, since many are able to get around the full ban, according to the Taipei Times, by changing their regional settings or by use of virtual private network, or VPNs, which help users bypass restrictions and hide what they do online.
Following Canada’s announcement, the European Parliament said Tuesday it would ban the app from office-issued phones as well as private devices that are connected to work email.
It became the latest E.U. institution to do so: Last week the European Commission and E.U. Council also announced similar restrictions.
“This measure aims to protect the Commission against cybersecurity threats and actions which may be exploited for cyberattacks against the corporate environment of the Commission,” it said in a statement.
Branches of the Australian government have enacted similar bans on staffers’ devices.
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and the Departments of Dense and Home Affairs have all said employees cannot download the app on their work phones, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Privacy and geopolitical tension with China are not the only reasons TikTok has run afoul of governments. Indonesia temporarily banned the app in 2018, citing concerns including “pornography, inappropriate content and blasphemy.” The ban was lifted less than a week later after the app agreed to censor some of its content.
Pakistan’s government has temporarily banned the app at least twice over inappropriate content. It’s not unusual for the country’s government to censor the Internet at home. Earlier this month it blocked Wikipedia over “blasphemous” content. Hours later the site was restored.
The Taliban announced a ban on TikTok last year to “prevent the younger generation from being misled,” according to the BBC. The ban came into effect, but Wired reports that users have found their way around the restrictions through VPNs.
Emily Rauhala in Brussels, Niha Masih in New Delhi and Adela Suliman in London contributed to this report, which has been updated.
*This story has not been edited by The Infallible staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.
