TikTok agreed to settle a landmark lawsuit in the United States on social media addiction, said the plaintiff’s lawyers.

The social video platform was one of four companies, including Meta, Snap and Alphabet-owned YouTube, facing allegations that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children.

Snap also settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

Details of the settlement with TikTok were not disclosed.

Joseph VanZandt, co-lead counsel for the plaintiff, said on Tuesday that TikTok remains a defendant in the other personal injury cases. He added that the trial will proceed as scheduled against Meta and YouTube.

What is the case about?

The lawsuit will be the first in a raft of cases that seek to hold social media companies accountable for harming children’s mental health

The case involves a 19-year-old from California, identified “KGM.”

She has accused the social media companies of deliberately designing their platforms to make them more addictive to children and teenagers.

KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology. It also exacerbated her depression and suicidal thoughts, she said.

The lawsuit is viewed as a bellwether whose outcome will likely have far-reaching consequences for both platforms and users, especially as there are hundreds of related lawsuits accusing platforms of youth.

Social media’s hidden role in human trafficking, smuggling

What do the companies say about the allegations?
The tech companies reject the claims that their products deliberately harm children.

The platforms stress they have put in place a number of safeguards over the years and argue that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.

A Meta spokesperson said in a statement Monday the company strongly disagrees with the allegations outlined in the lawsuit.

The company said it’s “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”

Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, said Monday that the allegations against YouTube are “simply not true.”

In a statement, he said “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work.”

Zuckerberg expected to testify at the trial

Jury selection in the case starts this week in the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

A number of executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks.

It’s the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury.

“This was only the first case — there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for its deliberately harmful products,” Sacha Haworth, executive director of the nonprofit Tech Oversight Project, told the AP news agency. (DW)

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designed to help users in Sri Lanka access authoritative and up-to-date information during the ongoing floods after Cyclone Ditwah. 

As part of TikTok’s continued efforts to promote safety and factual awareness on its platform, the guide will provide verified information to counter misinformation trends surrounding natural disasters.

Users in Sri Lanka searching for flood-related updates on TikTok will now see a prominent banner urging them to verify information through credible sources. 

This guide connects users directly with the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) of Sri Lanka, from where users in Sri Lanka can access verified information regarding natural disasters. The guide also connects users to TikTok’s Safety Centre resources and provides a direct link to TikTok’s Tragic Event Support guide, which offers practical support for individuals affected by distressing incidents. 

The guide defines what constitutes a tragic event – ranging from natural disasters to personal loss – and provides users with information on seeking mental health support and responsibly sharing or reporting content related to such events. 

“Our goal with this Search Guide is to help people find accurate, trusted information precisely when they need it most,” said Ferdous Mottakin, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations, South Asia at TikTok. “By embedding verified resources directly into search results, we are ensuring that communities have fast, reliable access to official guidance, emotional support tools and safety information, all within the platform. This feature is designed to reinforce responsible information-sharing and support users during a crisis.”

This launch builds on TikTok’s broader goals of elevating credible information and creating a safer digital environment for its community. By integrating these tools directly into the user experience, TikTok continues to empower its community with meaningful support and trustworthy information. 

The platform remains committed to fostering a space where people can stay informed, care for their well-being, and engage responsibly during moments that matter most, TikTok said, in a statement. 

For more information, visit TikTok’s Safety Centre: www.tiktok.com/safety (Newswire)

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A deal has been reached between the Trump administration and China to keep TikTok operational in the United States, administration officials announced Monday, concluding a yearslong effort that began during President Donald Trump’s first term.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that a framework agreement has been reached, and Trump will speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping Friday to finalize the deal. The agreement and conversation is a precursor to a Trump-Xi meeting that both sides have sought for months, US officials said Monday after a framework plan was announced.

“President Trump played a role in this, we had a call with him last night, we had specific guidance from him we shared it with our Chinese counterparts,” Bessent said in Madrid on Monday. “Without his leadership and the leverage he provides, we would not have been able to include the deal today.”

The Trump administration did not name the US-backed buyer, but the group is widely expected to be led by Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, who last week briefly became the world’s richest person. Trump in January had said he would champion Ellison, a Trump supporter, buying the app’s US assets.

Chinese and US diplomats have been meeting this week in Spain to discuss trade and other matters. Bessent, leading the latest round of trade talks with China on behalf of the United States, had said that TikTok was one of the subjects likely to be discussed.

“We were very focused on TikTok and making sure that it was a deal that is fair for the Chinese and completely respects US national security concerns, and that’s the deal we reached,” said US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Monday. “And of course, we want to ensure that the Chinese have a fair, invested environment in the United States, but always that US national security comes first.”

Li Chenggang, China’s top trade negotiator and vice minister of commerce, said the two sides held “candid and in-depth exchanges” and reached a “basic framework consensus” to keep TikTok operational in the US.

The framework agreed upon includes “resolving TikTok-related issues through cooperation, reducing investment barriers, and promoting relevant economic and trade cooperation,” Li told reporters in Madrid, according to Chinese state media, adding that China won’t seek any deal at the expense of its principles or corporate interests.

Wang Jingtao, a deputy director of China’s Cyberspace Administration, said the deal could include methods such as the entrusted operation of TikTok’s US user data and the licensing of algorithms and intellectual property rights, Chinese state media reported.

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment about the status of a deal.

Trump multiple times has extended a self-imposed deadline to reach a deal with China to sell at least part of TikTok parent company ByteDance’s US TikTok business to an American-backed owner. A bipartisan bill passed by Congress and signed by former President Joe Biden banned TikTok in the United States because of national security concerns, allowing the app to continue operating in America only if its China-based owner divested its stake in the US assets of the social media company.

TikTok briefly went dark in the United States on January 18, the day before the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act went into effect. But on January 19, one day before Trump took office for his second term, he said he would sign an executive action upon the beginning of his term that would ensure US companies would not be punished for hosting TikTok on their app stores or servers.

The executive order, signed on January 20, delayed for 75 days the enforcement of the law. Trump extended the deadline again in June. The deadline had most recently been extended to September 17, but Trump was widely expected to move the deadline again if a deal didn’t come together in time.

The law gives the president broad discretion on how to enforce the ban. But critics have said Trump’s extensions thwarted the will of Congress.

Trump toward the end of his first term had advocated for banning TikTok — a policy he never got passed but which Biden eventually supported and signed into law. But Trump’s opinion eventually changed after he viewed the social media app as contributing to his election victory in 2024.

TikTok boasts around 170 million US users, many of them young people – a contingent that offered significantly more support to the Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 election than that segment of the population has in recent years. Trump has repeatedly said a deal is close, but no breakthrough emerged until Monday.

Who is buying TikTok?

Several investment groups have come forward in recent months saying that they would be interested in buying TikTok. Among the most prominent has been led by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and investor Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” fame, who have made several public pleas to own TikTok, and who made an offer to ByteDance.

But TikTok would likely cost more than the group can afford — likely in the tens of billions of dollars. So that group said it offered to purchase TikTok’s US assets without the app’s secret sauce: its algorithm that hooks users into watching video after video on the platform. They said they were convinced they could create a comparable algorithm from scratch.

That’s why industry analysts believe a much more likely candidate to buy TikTok’s US assets is Ellison, who has the capability of leading a group of investors with the money to buy the algorithm — and whose company already has a relationship with TikTok.

Oracle in 2020 began hosting TikTok’s US data, and it briefly reached a deal with the first Trump administration that year to buy TikTok, before that deal was ultimately blocked.

Trump has previously said he would seek a 50-50 joint venture between ByteDance and a new American owner. It has since been heavily debated whether any amount of Chinese ownership would be allowed by law, and the Trump administration didn’t clarify what kind of agreement it had secured on Monday.

China, up until this point, has been hesitant to allow ByteDance to give up its US stake. But as trade tensions between the companies reached an inflection point in the spring and continued throughout the summer – evidenced by China’s announcement Monday that Nvidia had violated its antitrust laws – Chinese authorities apparently decided that it should play ball.

Without a TikTok deal in place, a meeting between Trump and Xi wouldn’t be possible, US officials said. An agreement makes it more likely the two leaders will sit down when Trump visits Asia at the end of October, according to those officials.

Trump in late October and early November has an Asia trip planned, and their first in-person meeting of Trump’s second term could, in theory, take place then.

Trump on Monday hinted that a deal is now close.

“The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL! It will be concluding shortly,” Trump said Monday in a post on Truth Social. “A deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday.” (CNN)

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A representative team of the TikTok platform in Sri Lanka has held discussions with Sri Lankan authorities focusing on how TikTok, as a digital platform, can be used to implement in creating opportunities in economic platforms and digital education, going beyond entertainment.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the discussion with the Secretary to the Prime Minister on Wednesday (16) also focused on common issues in the possible areas of using digital platforms.

The representatives pointed out the importance of the Inclusion of Legislation, Research and amendments into the curriculum on the knowledge of digital education and addressing  Digital hygiene, and Economic opportunities.

The secretary to the Prime Minister further emphasized the need for immediate implementation of such collaborative efforts with the ongoing reforms in the education sector.

The discussion was attended by Ferdous Al Mottakin-TikTok, Head of Government Relations and Public Affairs for South Asia, and Additional Secretary to the Prime Minister and other officials. (Newswire)

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US President Donald Trump said he gave his administration 75 more days to find a non-Chinese buyer for TikTok before the social media platform faced being banned in the country.

According to Trump’s Truth Social post, the extension was intended to “ensure all necessary approvals are signed.”

“My administration has been working hard on a deal to save TikTok, and we have made tremendous progress,” he wrote.

Trump said his administration was in contact with four different groups about a prospective deal, without naming any of them, adding he’d like to work with both China and TikTok to get the deal done.

“We don’t want TikTok to go dark,” he added.

Ban first pushed by Trump but signed by Biden

The US Congress had initially mandated that the short-video platform find a new, non-Chinese owner by January 19 for national security reasons, with Trump later extending the deadline until April 5.

Trump had tried to ban the social media network during his first term as president, but a US federal judge ruled the president did not have the authority to ban the app. Following that judicial rebuke, Congress passed the bill calling for TikTok’s sale, which former PresidentJoe Biden signed.

Lawmakers in the US feared that China could gain access to TikTok’s personal data for the purpose of influencing political opinion in the country.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said the country’s government has never asked companies to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence” held in foreign countries. TikTok itself has said it prioritizes user safety.

Chinese company Bytedance, which owns the social media network, has repeatedly said the platform is not for sale, adding Friday that “key matters” remain in talks with the US government over a potential solution to keep the platform running. 

Several US businesses are reported to have made offers to buy a share of TikTok.

In addition to China, TikTok also has offices in Singapore and Los Angeles. (DW)

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The Chinese short-form video service app TikTok went offline in the US on Saturday night (local time), just hours before a law banning the app was set to take effect, CNN reported.

The users who tried to access the platform were met with a message stating, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

The ban follows a Supreme Court ruling on Friday that upheld a law passed with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by US President Joe Biden in April.

According to CNN, the law prohibits US companies from hosting or serving content for the Chinese-owned platform unless TikTok is sold to a US-based or allied company.

However, despite the ban, TikTok hinted that it could be reinstated soon, possibly as early as Monday. The company expressed hope that US President-elect Donald Trump would work with them on a solution to restore the app, following his statement that he would likely “delay” the ban for 90 days after taking office.

Trump, in a recent interview, confirmed that the 90-day extension was under consideration, adding that a final decision would be announced on Monday, the day he would be sworn in as the 47th President of the US, which is going to be his second time at the White House.

“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump told NBC News as quoted by CNN.

“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he added.

The app’s disappearance from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store, along with other ByteDance apps like CapCut, also displaying similar messages, marked the beginning of the ban’s enforcement, CNN reported.

The US government’s concerns about TikTok’s ties to China and its potential access to vast amounts of user data were central to the ban. Many US users, including influencers and small business owners who relied on the app, expressed disappointment but still hoped for a resolution.

The Supreme Court’s decision left TikTok with few legal options, and some tech companies that operate app stores and servers feared potential legal consequences for violating the terms of the ban, prompting them to remove the app, CNN reported.

However, Trump, who had previously raised concerns about TikTok, is now positioning himself as the app’s potential saviour. TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew, has also met with Trump in the lead-up to the ban and is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

The future of TikTok in the US now rests on the incoming administration, with President Biden indicating that the decision would fall to Trump’s administration.

According to CNN, the 90-day extension claimed by Trump was based on a law passed last year that allows the president to postpone the ban for 90 days, provided there is evidence that efforts to sell TikTok to a US-owned company have made significant progress. (ANI)

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Short video app TikTok has taken measures to stop a cyberattack targeting several brand and celebrity accounts, including news network CNN, a spokesperson for the company said on Tuesday.

“We have been collaborating closely with CNN to restore account access and implement enhanced security measures to safeguard their account moving forward,” the spokesperson said.

TikTok said that the number of accounts compromised is “very small” and it is working with affected account owners to restore access if needed.

A source at TikTok told Reuters the account of reality TV star Paris Hilton was targeted but had not been compromised.

TikTok parent company ByteDance is currently challenging a law in courts that requires it to sell TikTok by next January or face a ban in the country. The White House said it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security grounds.

TikTok has argued it will not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government and that it has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy of its users. (Reuters)

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Congress finalized legislation on Tuesday that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, escalating a massive threat to the company’s US operations.

The bill passed the Senate as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel and Ukraine. It was approved by the House on Saturday. It now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk. If he signs the bill, as he is expected to do, TikTok would be forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely.

Here’s what we know and how it could affect you.

What does the TikTok legislation do?

The bill approved this week is an updated version of a bill that House lawmakers approved in March. It gives TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, 270 days to sell TikTok. Failure to do so would lead to significant consequences: TikTok would be prohibited from US app stores and from “internet hosting services” that support it.

That would effectively restrict new downloads of the app and interaction with its content. If signed this week, the deadline for a sale would fall in January 2025. Under the legislation, however, Biden could extend the deadline another 90 days if he determines there’s been progress toward a sale, giving TikTok potentially up to a year before facing a ban.

How did this wind up in a bill about foreign aid?

The earlier TikTok bill had been passed by the House, but it stalled in the Senate. In a procedural move, House Republicans this month attached the revised TikTok bill to the foreign aid package in hopes of forcing the Senate to vote on the TikTok legislation. Bundling the bill with the foreign aid — a top US priority — fast-tracked the TikTok bill and made it more likely to pass.

Will Biden sign the TikTok bill?

Since the bill is part of the foreign aid package that Biden has vocally supported, he is expected to sign it, and quickly. Biden has also been on record supporting the earlier TikTok legislation, so there is little reason to think he would oppose the latest version of it that gives TikTok a slightly longer runway and the White House additional input in the forced sale.

What does this mean for my use of the app?

If and when Biden signs the bill into law, it would start the 270-day clock for TikTok to find a buyer. If it can’t separate from ByteDance, then TikTok users could hypothetically be cut off by January. But that is still a big “if.” So for now, TikTok fans can continue using the app as before, though they might begin to see more creators — or the company itself — speaking out in the app to oppose the legislation.

What are TikTok’s options?

TikTok has promised to take the US government to court if Biden signs the bill. In a memo on Saturday, a top TikTok executive wrote to employees that this would be the “beginning, not the end” of a long process to challenge what the company calls unconstitutional legislation that censors Americans’ speech rights and that would harm small businesses that depend on the app. In March, TikTok CEO Shou Chew vowed to continue fighting, “including (by) exercising our legal rights.”

Does TikTok have a case?

First Amendment experts say a bill that has the ultimate effect of censoring TikTok users could be shot down by the courts.

“Longstanding Supreme Court precedent protects Americans’ First Amendment right to access information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “By banning TikTok, the bill would infringe on this right, and with no real pay-off. China and other foreign adversaries could still purchase Americans’ sensitive data from data brokers on the open market.”

A court challenge could lead to the measure being temporarily blocked while the litigation plays out, likely over multiple years. But if a court declines to grant a temporary injunction, TikTok could have to scramble to comply with the law.

So what if TikTok gets sold to someone else?

The trouble is that TikTok’s parent is subject to Chinese law, and the Chinese government is on record opposing a sale.

In recent years, China has implemented export controls governing algorithms, a policy that would seem to cover the incredibly successful algorithm that powers TikTok’s recommendation engine.

If the Chinese government doesn’t want to let ByteDance relinquish TikTok’s algorithm, the thinking goes, it could block the sale outright. Alternatively, it may allow TikTok to be sold but without the lucrative algorithm that forms the basis for its popularity.

Can TikTok still succeed without its algorithm? That would be the difficult question facing the company in the event of a forced sale. Without the secret sauce that has propelled the app to 170 million US users, the app could be as good as dead. (CNN)

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China’s “infiltration” of civil discourse in the United States poses an “immediate” threat to Democracy and is one of the “greatest threats we face today” in terms of national security, according to an expert on China. 

“TikTok is not just a technological concern, it is not just a social media problem, TikTok is today China’s greatest asymmetric advantage against America,” Michael Sobolik, author of the new book “Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance,” told Fox News Digital. 

“It represents the most immediate threat to American democracy that the Chinese Communist Party poses,” he continued.

China’s role in “infiltrating our civil discourse” through TikTok represents one of the “most important problem sets in US-China relations,” Sobolik explained, because “you have about half of America on one app that the Chinese Communist Party controls, and they can manipulate public opinion and spread propaganda.”

“It’s a huge problem.”

Sobolik, a Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told Fox News Digital that 170 million Americans are on the social media platform with 150 million of them on the site for at least an hour a day. A large chunk of those users, Sobolik said, rely on the platform for news, which the Chinese government is using to its advantage.

“The Chinese Communist Party controls TikTok, because TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is domiciled inside of China,” Sobolik said. “As such, they must comply with any requests that they receive from Beijing to turn over U.S. user data, to censor content, or to boost content. They have no recourse of saying no to the CCP. There have already been documented instances of TikTok surveilling U.S. journalists to try to figure out who they were talking to inside of the company. ByteDance has already pledged its cooperation to work with Beijing to hone its algorithm to advance the CCP’s interests.”

Members of Congress have been debating over the past several months whether to ban TikTok in the United States or force the sale of the company to an entity outside of China. Opponents of the bills on the Republican side have argued that banning the popular social media app “goes against the First Amendment.”

Sobolik flatly rejected that idea.

“None of this is a mystery,” Sobolik said. “This is documented. There are instances of TikTok’s censoring content about Tibet, the Uyghurs, Tiananmen Square and other sensitive issues to the Chinese Communist Party. The concerns with TikTok have nothing to do with free speech. The concerns for TikTok are that an adversarial nation controls one of the biggest pillars of information in the United States today. And if you think that’s only a theoretical concern, imagine if China goes to war with Taiwan. And then, as that is happening, floods TikTok with pro-CCP messages, with disinformation about what’s happening, and tries to push a public opinion campaign that America should stay out and not do anything to help Taiwan.”

“China has one of the strongest abilities to manipulate U.S. public opinion in its grasp today. This should be a chilling reality. This should send a shiver down the spines of every American.”

Sobolik continued, “The content you see on TikTok may feel unique to you, but you are being fed content from an algorithm that is controlled by America’s chief adversary. This is a Trojan horse inside of the United States, and it is high past time for members of Congress to take this seriously. To put the country first and to kick this Trojan horse out of America’s walls. We cannot allow this app to continue to function under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.”

“America has a gun pointed at its head every single day in the information realm. We have to take care of this issue and we must do it now. There are no constitutional concerns of any meaning here. This is a national security concern, and it is one of the greatest concerns that we face today.”

It remains unclear whether Congress has the necessary political appetite to ban or dissolve TikTok, and Sobolik told Fox News Digital that he believes that question is “going to be one of the biggest tests for America.”

“If we can fix this TikTok problem, that will be one of the most encouraging signs that we’ve seen in decades about our seriousness with protecting our liberty and our freedom and for opposing tyranny,” Sobolik said. “If we let this problem go, if we don’t fix it, we may as well go home and get out of the great power competition altogether.

“Because again, remember, protecting yourself is the bare minimum. Good defense might win NBA basketball championships, but good defense is the bare minimum. It’s good housekeeping. You don’t get a gold star for taking care of your own homeland. You get a gold star for going out in opposing authoritarian regimes. Cold wars are won by seizing the initiative and going on the offensive. If we cannot sever TikTok from CCP control, we have much bigger problems.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a TikTok spokesperson said “multiple media outlets have reported” that “there is not a shred of evidence” to the “outlandish claims” that TikTok is a vessel of the Chinese government.

“The reality is the ban bill would trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and devastate 7 million small businesses nationwide,” the spokesperson said. (Fox News)

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Nepal says it will ban TikTok, adding that social harmony and goodwill are being disturbed by “misuse” of the popular video-sharing app and that there is rising demand to control it.

Nepal’s Minister for Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma said the decision to ban TikTok was taken at a cabinet meeting on Monday.

Sharma said the decision was made because TikTok was consistently used to share content that “disturbs social harmony and disrupts family structures and social relations”.

“Colleagues are working on closing it technically,” she said, without specifying what triggered the ban.

TikTok has already been either partially or completely banned by other countries, with many citing security concerns.

More than 1,600 TikTok-related cybercrime cases have been registered over the last four years in Nepal, according to local media reports.

Nepal Telecom Authority chief Purushottam Khanal said that internet service providers have been asked to close the app. “Some have already closed while others are doing it later today [Monday],” Khanal told Reuters news agency.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. It has previously said such bans are “misguided” and that they are based on “misconceptions”.

Hours after the decision was made public, videos on the ban had thousands of views on TikTok.

Opposition leaders in Nepal criticised the move, saying that it lacked “effectiveness, maturity and responsibility”.

“There are many unwanted materials in other social media also. What must be done is to regulate and not restrict them,” said Pradeep Gyawali, former foreign minister and a senior leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).

Gagan Thapa, leader of the Nepali Congress party that is part of the ruling coalition, said the government’s intention seems to be to “stifle freedom of expression”.

“Regulation is necessary to discourage those who abuse social media, but shutting down social media in the name of regulation is completely wrong,” he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The decision comes days after Nepal introduced a directive requiring social media platforms operating in the country to set up offices.

TikTok, with around a billion monthly users, is run by the Beijing-based parent company ByteDance and is the sixth most used social platform in the world, according to the We Are Social marketing agency.

Multiple countries have sought to tighten controls on the app for allegedly breaking data rules and for its potentially harmful impact on youth.

Nepal’s neighbour India banned TikTok along with dozens of other apps by Chinese developers in June 2020, saying that they could compromise national security and integrity.

Another South Asian country, Pakistan, banned the app at least four times over what the country’s government terms its “immoral and indecent” content.

Parent company ByteDance rejects critics who accuse it of being under Beijing’s direct control.

Although it lags behind the likes of Meta’s long-dominant trio of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, its growth among young people far outstrips its competitors. (Al Jazeera)

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Australia will ban the use of TikTok on federal government devices over security concerns, joining a list of countries restricting the video-sharing app that includes the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

The ban follows warnings by Western officials that China could use the app, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, to spy on users and manipulate public debate.

Australia’s Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said on Tuesday the ban would come into effect “as soon as practicable” while exemptions would be allowed on a case-by-case basis subject to security precautions.

The ban makes Australia the last of the “Five Eyes” intelligence partners to introduce such restrictions, following the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

The announcement comes amid heightened concerns in Australia about alleged espionage and interference by Beijing, which led Canberra to pass sweeping anti-foreign interference legislation and slap restrictions on Chinese firms, including Huawei.

TikTok has denied claims that the app represents a security risk and insisted it has never and would never share data with the Chinese government.

The US Congress is currently considering legislation that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok, which claims 150 million US users, or see the app banned outright.

Critics have argued the proposed ban may be incompatible with the free speech rights guaranteed by the US constitution and claimed such a move would be hypocritical given US tech companies’ poor record on privacy and the US government’s own track record of spying.

China has said it would “firmly oppose” a forced sale of TikTok and basing such a move on “foreign ownership, rather than its products and services” would damage investor confidence in the US. (AL Jazeera)

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The European Commission has banned TikTok from official devices because of concerns about cybersecurity, a move sharply criticized by the company in its latest run-in with Western governments over how it handles user data.

Commission staff have until March 15 to delete the short-form video app, owned by China’s ByteDance, from work devices and any personal devices that use Commission apps and services.

Based in Brussels, the European Commission is the executive arm of the European Union, responsible for proposing and enforcing legislation and implementing the EU budget. It employs around 32,000 permanent and contract workers.

“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,” the Commission said in a statement Thursday.

European Commission spokesperson Sonya Gospodinova told reporters that the ban was “temporary” and “under constant review and possible reassessment.”

A second spokesperson, Eric Mamer, added: “But we’re not going to say here what is necessary or not in order for the suspension to be lifted.”

The measure piles further pressure on TikTok, already banned from US federal government devices and from official devices in some US states due to fears that the app’s user data could wind up in the hands of the Chinese government.

Previously, TikTok has disclosed to European users that China-based employees may access EU users’ data.

But on Thursday the company pushed back against the ban, calling it “misguided and based on fundamental misconceptions.”

In a statement shared with CNN, a spokesperson said TikTok had contacted the Commission to “set the record straight and explain how we protect the data of the 125 million people across the EU who come to TikTok every month.”

“We’re continuing to enhance our approach to data security, including by establishing three data centers in Europe to store user data locally; further reducing employee access to data; and minimizing data flows outside of Europe,” the spokesperson added.

The company has previously said it is working on a program to safeguard US user data in response to policymakers’ concerns.

In August, the Financial Times reported that the UK parliament had shut down its TikTok account just one week after it was launched after lawmakers raised concerns that Beijing uses the app as spyware. (CNN)

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