The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Chinese state ‘has no access to Tik Tok’
Tik Tok has insisted that China’s Communist Party does not have access to the personal information of its users.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has previously claimed that people should only use the social media app if they are happy for their data to be accessed by the Chinese state.
Asked about such claims, Tik Tok’s head of public policy for Europe, Theo Bertram, said the allegation is “completely false”.
“Tik Tok is not available in China. Tik Tok data is stored in the US,” he said.
“Tik Tok is a company incorporated in the US.
“There is zero truth to the accusations that the Chinese state has access to Tik Tok users’ data.”
Mr Bertram added that the social media app would “definitely say no” to any requests for data, and has been set up in a way to “give protection to our users from the Chinese government”.
“The suggestion that we are, in any way, under the thumb of the Chinese government is completely and utterly false,” he said.
The social media app is owned by Byte Dance, founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming. Scrutiny has increased in recent weeks as tensions rose between London and Beijing.
Mr Bertram said the app is being “kicked around as a political football” and that some of the “political rhetoric” is “getting out of the reality”.
Mr Bertram also defended TikTok’s policy on policing child sexual abuse, after a newspaper report claimed the platform would only ban individuals after they were caught sending sexualised messages to young people three times.
He said that policy had been replaced “more than a year ago” and the app has a “zerotolerance” policy on child sex abuse material.