According to comprehensive media reports, the British government followed up with the European Union (EU) and the United States last Thursday (16th) and announced that it would prohibit the installation of the international version of the Chinese short video and video community program “TikTok” on government public equipment on security grounds. The BBC followed up on Sunday (19th), urging employees to delete TikTok from their official mobile phones.
“This decision is based on concerns about data privacy and security by government authorities around the world,” the BBC, which is funded by the UK government, said in explaining the move.
The BBC’s employee guidelines released on the 19th mentioned that based on governments’ concerns about privacy and security, it is not recommended to install TikTok on public devices unless there are specific commercial purposes. If employees use TikTok not based on work needs, they should remove it. In addition, for those employees who have installed TikTok on their personal mobile phones and will use their personal mobile phones for official business, the BBC asked them to contact the company’s information security team to discuss “the type of BBC information currently processed”.
A spokesman for the BBC said that the company attaches great importance to the safety of systems, data and employees, and will continue to review the activities of third-party platforms such as TikTok. Although the use of TikTok based on official needs such as commentary and marketing is not limited, the BBC will continue to monitor and evaluate the relevant situation.
TikTok expressed disappointment with the BBC’s decision. “We believe these bans are based on fundamental misunderstandings and are driven by broader geopolitics,”
“The BBC has a strong presence on our platform, with multiple accounts ranging from news to music covering our engaged communities in the UK and around the world,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesman added: “We remain in close dialogue with the BBC and are committed to working with them to address any concerns they may have.”
The report said that while trying to gain new audiences, the BBC opened multiple homepages on TikTok, and its official account has 4.4 million followers. Among them, BBC News has its own TikTok channel with 1.2 million fans, and recently recruited journalists to create content for it.
TikTok is the overseas version of Douyin, a Chinese short video sharing platform. Its parent company is Byte Dance, headquartered in Beijing. Known for its viral dance craze, sketches and filters, the short-form video platform is especially popular with young people, with more than 3.5 billion downloads worldwide.
ByteDance has long maintained that it does not keep data in China and has denied sharing it with the Chinese government. But its employees were found to have tracked the location of a small number of Western journalists in 2022. The company later said those employees had been fired; an American TikTokker shared a video critical of the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, which was taken down. TikTok Afterwards said it was a mistake.
According to reports, on March 9, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) informed employees not to use TikTok on work phones. This is Denmark’s public broadcaster and the first news organization in the world to issue such advice. The company’s restrictions are stricter than those of the BBC, requiring employees to use only company-designated mobile phones when using the app for work purposes.
Western authorities are worried that users’ personal information will be used or abused by the Chinese authorities, and they are taking an increasingly tough attitude towards TikTok. At present, government departments or legislative bodies in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Japan, India and other countries, as well as EU institutions such as the European Commission, the European Council, and the European Parliament, have banned TikTok from being used on their official devices. Last Friday (17th), the New Zealand Parliament also joined the ranks, becoming the latest country to ban TikTok at the federal level.
In addition, more than 30 states and more than a dozen universities and colleges in the United States have also issued bans on TikTok, prohibiting the application from being used on state government equipment or campus equipment and networks.
Some state-level local governments in countries such as Canada and Belgium have also taken such action. These actions are extending the global containment of TikTok to different levels.