Japanese politicians are reportedly looking at restricting the use of Chinese-made apps including ByteDance-owned TikTok over data security concerns.
According to Japanese news outlet NHK, the group of lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party want to submit proposals for the plan to the government as soon as September.
The news of Japan’s lawmakers discussing a ban on Chinese apps follows last month’s decision by India’s government to block TikTok and Tencent Music Entertainment’s QQ Music from devices in the country, as it officially banned 59 Chinese-owned mobile apps.
In the US, at the start of the month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said publicly that the United States is “certainly looking at” the banning of Chinese social media apps in the country and cited TikTok in particular as handing private user data to “the Chinese Communist Party”, a suggestion that is vehemently denied by the company.
Today (July 29), President Donald Trump also told reporters outside the White House that the US is considering a ban on the app. “We’re looking at TikTok, we’re thinking about making a decision,” he said.
Meanwhile, today also TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer publish a blog post in which he said that TikTok will be launching a Transparency and Accountability Center in order to allow experts to observe the app’s moderation policies, in addition to examining the code that drives its algorithms.
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