Growing list of countries putting TikTok bans in place

The United States is the latest country to consider a nationwide ban on TikTok.

TikTok is pretty much the social media app right now, a huge short-form video network that has created countless stars and continues to attract crazy amounts of engagement.

However, even if some of the cases have taken years to progress, there have been plenty of objections raised about it in a bunch of countries - the US is by no means the first to think about this issue.

In fact, a lot of places now have restrictions in some form on TikTok - here are some of them:

Afghanistan - Banned

Australia - Banned from government devices

Belgium - Banned from government devices

Canada - Banned from government devices

Denmark - Banned from Defense Ministry devices

India - Banned

Nepal - Banned

The Netherlands - Government employees advised not to use it

New Zealand - Banned from parliament workers' devices

Norway - Banned from government devices

Somalia - Banned

Taiwan - Banned from government devices

United Kingdom - Banned from government devices

That's quite a list of big-hitters to impose restrictions on the app, and it gets even more complicated when you turn to the US, where there are more than 150 million TikTok users.

Legislation in the US rarely gets through super quickly, and efforts to ban or curtail TikTok have been grinding for a while, but they recently took a step forward.

A bill just passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 352-65 and will now go to the Senate, demanding that TikTok's parent company ByteDance divest from the app or see it banned in the US.

TikTok has been fairly quiet on these efforts for a long time now, but the company's CEO Shou Chew has posted a response to the latest development.

Our CEO Shou Chew's response to the TikTok ban bill: pic.twitter.com/7AnDYOLD96

— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) March 13, 2024

He said: "This bill gives more power to a handful of other social media companies. It will also take billions of dollars out of the pockets of creators and small businesses. It will put more than 300,000 American jobs at risk and it will take away your TikTok."

That's fighting talk, but it's also key to remember that it's just TikTok's view of things - and it's logical that it would try to counter the narratives being pushed in the bill.

The core fear for so many of the countries and ministries that have imposed restrictions on TikTok basically revolve around its close ties to the Chinese government.

This raises the fear that TikTok might be able to use its data to inform the government of meta-changes, but also that it could make algorithmic adjustments to actually encourage trends and narratives that spread on its platform, including potential misinformation.

For now, there's no change and TikTok hasn't disappeared overnight from app stores or phones, but it's becoming increasingly possible that it could face some seismic changes in the US at some point down the line.