Europe is talking about the need to ban TikTok following the example of the United States
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that Europe should consider banning the social network TikTok in Europe following the example of the United States. According to him, this Chinese social network spreads disinformation, fake news and influences election results.
He also emphasized that programs such as TikTok do not provide balanced information. This was reported by ERR.
The head of the Estonian diplomatic mission said that recently in Romania, the results of the first round of the presidential election were canceled due to Russia's interference in the election through large-scale online campaigning, including through TikTok. The Minister explained that such social networks allow for the effective dissemination of biased information.
He also noted that TikTok collects a lot of user data, but it is unclear who can access it.
"Since TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, there are reasonable fears that the data could fall into the hands of the Chinese authorities. The latest yearbook of the Foreign Intelligence Service also says that TikTok collects extensive information that could be useful for intelligence gathering, blackmail, and cyberattacks," the foreign minister emphasized.
Tsahkna said that European countries need to take into account security risks and consider banning TikTok. At the same time, he added that democratic countries should continue discussions on how to successfully counter the influx of artificial intelligence-based social bots whose goal is to interfere in democratic processes.
As a reminder, on the evening of January 18, access to the TikTok social network in the United States was restricted. The app became unavailable less than two hours before the official ban came into effect. Thus, about 170 million Americans were left without access to the popular social network.
Earlier it was reported that the European Commission ordered the TikTok platform to "freeze and preserve" data related to the Romanian presidential election. This step was preceded by declassified information about external interference from Russia.
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