breaking news Advertorial
article with image
While the fracas between US and TikTok is unlikely to have any repercussions for Singapore, the crux of the issue - a fight over data - matters to all of us, say the Institute of Policy Studies’ Carol Soon, Chew Han Ei and Ann Mak.
SINGAPORE: Last month, US President Joe Biden signed a Bill that would ban TikTok in the United States unless its China-based owner ByteDance divests from the social media platform. This move stemmed from fears that China could compel the platform to hand over the personal data of its 170 million American users to the Chinese government under its National Intelligence Law.
In the lead-up to Biden’s sell-or-ban law, Apple removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China under orders from China's cyberspace regulator citing national security concerns. Telegram and Signal, two other foreign messaging apps, were also removed for the same reason.
The ongoing technological tussle between the two major powers reflects a broader trend that is taking place all over the world. Increasingly, countries are implementing unilateral policies and initiatives to regulate the internet and digital sphere, in a bid to safeguard their autonomy and control of the internet.
This video is playing in picture-in-picture
Citing national security concerns and protecting citizens’ personal information, governments around the world are rolling out policies that mandate companies to store and process the data that they collect within the geographical borders of the country. This was the case for TikTok, which previously sought to assuage US lawmakers’ concerns by migrating data belonging to US users to servers owned by US-based Oracle.
