On January 19, when American users opened TikTok, they saw a message saying, “You cannot use TikTok right now.” This came after the Chinese video-sharing platform TikTok was finally banned in the US after it was for a long time accused of data breach. In this era of digitalisation, data has emerged as the biggest weapon, and many countries like the US believe that TikTok, a Chinese company, can give users’ data to the Chinese government, which can pose a threat to national security.

Data has the power to interfere in the elections of many countries and even shake the governments of the day. Keeping this in mind, the US court banned the operation of TikTok inside the country. TikTok shut down its services itself on Saturday night, two hours before the ban came into effect in the US. More than 17 crore Americans have been affected by the TikTok ban.

After the US Supreme Court ruling in favour of the law banning TikTok, this short video platform can only escape the ban if its parent company ‘ByteDance’ sells it to a recognised American company. Meanwhile, TikTok, before pulling from the US, said in a statement that Joe Biden, the White House, and the Justice Department have failed to give it more clarity and assurance in this matter. It may be noted that a law signed by President Joe Biden in April prohibited US companies from hosting the Chinese-owned social media platform unless it sells itself to US companies or one of its affiliates. On Friday, TikTok also suffered a setback from the Supreme Court, which upheld the ban.

Thus, on Saturday, TikTok was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores with immediate effect from 10:50 pm US time. However, newly elected........

© News9Live