New York City bans TikTok on government-owned devices over security concerns

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) – New York Metropolis on Wednesday banned TikTok on government-owned gadgets, citing safety issues, becoming a member of a lot of U.S. cities and states which have put such restrictions on the brief video sharing app.

TikTok, which is utilized by greater than 150 million Individuals and is owned by Chinese language tech big ByteDance, has faced growing calls from U.S. lawmakers for a nationwide ban over issues about attainable Chinese language authorities affect.

TikTok “posed a safety risk to the town's technical networks,” the administration of New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams mentioned in an announcement.

New York Metropolis companies are required to take away the app inside 30 days and staff will lose entry to the app and its web site on city-owned gadgets and networks. New York State had already banned TikTok on state-issued cell gadgets.

TikTok mentioned it “has not shared, and wouldn't share, U.S. consumer knowledge with the Chinese language authorities, and has taken substantial measures to guard the privateness and safety of TikTok customers.”

High U.S. safety officers together with FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director William Burns have mentioned TikTok poses a risk. Wray mentioned in March that China's authorities may use TikTok to regulate software program on tens of millions of gadgets and drive narratives to divide Individuals, including the app “screams” of nationwide safety issues.

Former President Donald Trump in 2020 sought to bar new downloads of TikTok, however a sequence of court docket selections blocked the ban from taking impact.

Many U.S. states and cities have restricted TikTok on authorities gadgets. Montana lately handed a invoice banning the app throughout the state, a rule set to enter impact on Jan. 1 and being challenged legally.

Near half of American adults support a ban on TikTok, in keeping with a brand new Reuters/Ipsos survey launched on Wednesday.

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Kanishka Singh is a breaking information reporter for Reuters in Washington DC, who primarily covers US politics and nationwide affairs in his present function. His previous breaking information protection has spanned throughout a spread of subjects just like the Black Lives Matter motion; the US elections; the 2021 Capitol riots and their comply with up probes; the Brexit deal; US-China commerce tensions; the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan; the COVID-19 pandemic; and a 2019 Supreme Court docket verdict on a non secular dispute web site in his native India.