TikTok is massively growing in user base and despite the app being the highlight of controversy, with a lot of people fearing for their privacy being compromised, more and more are using it. The US government, however, won’t be using TikTok in any of their devices due to a recently passed bill.
TikTok Banned from US Government Devices
According to the story by SCMP, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has just unanimously passed a bill that would officially ban US federal workers from being able to download the now very popular app onto certain US government devices. This was according to Senator Josh Hawley who was the official bill sponsor.
The announcement was given in a press release on Wednesday where the US Senate unanimously approved a quite similar measure back in August of 2020. It was Representative Ken Buck who previously introduced a similar bill officially in the House.
US Government Concerns Over ByteDance
The app, which is really popular with teens nowadays eager to show off their hidden dance moves and more, has come directly under fire in the United States due to concerns of the app’s Chinese owner known as ByteDance. TikTok has reportedly sought to distance itself from Beijing, achieving mixed success.
Hawley reportedly called the company an “immediate security threat.” Hawley said in a recent statement after the voting process that this should definitely not be a partisan issue and that he is glad to see his colleagues within the Senate all act together in order to address the issue of Beijing’s “covert data collection campaign.”
While the US government might see TikTok as a threat, a lot of users, especially the young ones, are getting more and more involved with the platform as they have reportedly beaten Facebook in terms of regular downloads! While the company is still massively growing, a lot of new features are actually being planned out for the app.
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TikTok Shoppiing Feature
In fact, TikTok shopping could potentially be a new thing that the platform would introduce later on as it is currently still testing out the feature with a limited number of users. Usually, it is Instagram that copies or emulates certain features from other apps but this time, things are shifting the other way around as TikTok is trying to incorporate the whole in-app shopping feature as well.
According to an article by Tech.co, the trial efforts are currently being run along with certain brands that include the clothing label Hype. This was according to a report coming from Bloomberg which stated that this will allow brands to be able to operate certain dedicated stores within the platform as well as receiving orders that would come directly from TikTok users. For those that have seen Instagram’s own “product catalogs,” basically that’s how the new feature might potentially look.
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Written by Urian B.
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