[imagesource:TikTok]

China accused the US of censorship this week after all federal employees were instructed to delete TikTok from their government-issued devices. In a deliciously ironic twist, the communists said that the US was ‘abusing state power to suppress other countries.

Blaming the move on America’s own ‘insecurities’, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson seems to forget that the makers of all our favourite toys also ban Facebook, Twitter, and whatever apps don’t agree with the ruling party’s communist-ish views.

The US government “has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries’ companies. How unsure of itself can the US, the world’s top superpower, be to fear a young person’s favourite app to such a degree?”

Now don’t bring the kids into this China, you already have an estimated 10 million kids packing toys in your ‘low-cost manufacturing chain’, so stop calling the kettle black.

Two-thirds of American teenagers use TikTok, and the US has long harboured fears that China might be using the app to ‘spy’ on them by stealing private user data or to try to ‘push misinformation or narratives favouring China’.

Canada has also jumped on the ‘screw China’ bandwagon and has instructed their government employees to also delete the app. Canadian heartthrob and prime minister Justin Trudeau told reporters that their southern neighbours might have a point.

“I suspect that as the government takes the significant step, many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices.”

Whether that means no more Letterkenny TikToks remains to be seen, but it doesn’t look too great, eh?

Meanwhile, China was still shitting itself over a host of ‘provocations’ from the US which range from the well-documented spy balloon fiasco to Taiwan. The US on the other hand cannot deny or confirm whether Covid was ‘leaked from a Chinese Lab’. They won’t say that it did, but can’t say whether it didn’t, or didn’t say whether they can’t or don’t. We don’t know, or can’t say for sure. Welcome to international politics.

Lucky for us South Africans, we have some experts that can speak clearly and according to them, there are worse apps on your phone than TikTok if privacy and international espionage are a concern. According to News24, Jean le Roux, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab in Cape Town, believes TikTok isn’t the only thing to worry about.

“While it’s easy to get swept away by the noise around Chinese surveillance through TikTok, the fact remains that other, more ‘Western’ platforms are likely selling your personal information in much more egregious ways to marketing companies you’ll never even hear of.”

TikTok has not been asked to address any governmental panel or enquiry and feels done in by the move, saying that it was a shame that governments were discarding a platform loved by millions. But as we know in South Africa, when elephants fight, only the grass suffers.