The US President Donald Trump in his first interview since taking office for the second time, downplayed worries about the national security threats posed by the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok.
“Is it that important for China to be spying on young people, on young kids, watching crazy videos?” Trump said. Trump was worried that China could be using TikTok to spy on American users.
He added that the fact that all laptops and phones were made in China posed an even greater risk because they might be used for monitoring.
Trump said among many other things, they manufacture computers and cellphones and this poses a greater hazard. ByteDance owns TikTok, which has previously refuted claims of user spying. Former President Joe Biden’s administration officials cited that the application collects user names, addresses, credit card and purchase information, device and network information, GPS location data, biometric identifiers, keystroke patterns, and behavioral data.
Donald Trump postponed a TikTok ban and granted ByteDance a seventy-five-day window to sell the business and remove its US operations in an executive order he issued on his first day in office.
Trump has said that TikTok helped him reach a younger audience, which helped him win the election. Additionally, he has suggested that Tesla CEO and ally Elon Musk acquire TikTok and operate it in collaboration with the US government.
Trump said earlier this week that he was receptive to installing the program, even though TikTok had been banned from being put on government devices during the Biden administration.
