The UK is joining the US, Canada, Belgium, and the European Commission in banning TikTok from government devices due to security concerns, with immediate effect.
In a statement, Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden said “The security of sensitive government information must come first, so today we are banning this app on government devices. The use of other data-extracting apps will be kept under review.”
The British government asked the National Cyber Security Centre to investigate the risks associated with how sensitive information could be accessed and used, as well as any possible vulnerabilities of government data from social media apps.
“Restricting the use of TikTok on government devices is a prudent and proportionate step following advice from our cyber security experts,” Dowden added.
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As reported by Reuters, according to a TikTok spokesperson, the company will attempt to negotiate with the government as it believes that the ban is based on a “fundamental misconception” and is influenced by broader geopolitical issues in which TikTok and UK users are not involved.
China’s embassy in London issued a statement claiming that the decision was politically motivated rather than fact-based, and that it would disrupt the normal operations of relevant companies in the UK, ultimately harming the UK’s interests.
Meanwhile, TikTok faces the risk of being banned altogether in the US. After nearly two-and-a-half years since the Trump administration’s threat to ban TikTok in the United States if it did not divest from its Chinese owners, the Biden administration is now making similar demands.
In September 2021, five years after its launch, TikTok announced in a press release that it had reached one billion active users. Statista has predicted that there will be 15 million TikTok users in the UK by 2025.
According to a report in 2022, TikTok’s advertising revenues are projected to reach $18.04 billion in 2023, representing a 55% increase from the previous year. TikTok is currently the social media platform where consumers spend the most time, and it is the fastest-growing one.
Although this growth is impressive, the projected increase in TikTok’s ad revenues this year actually represents a significant deceleration from the previous year. In 2022, TikTok’s yearly revenue from ads amounted to $11.04 billion, indicating a remarkable 200% annual rise. To put it another way, TikTok’s revenue from ads in 2022 was three times higher than in 2021.
