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A leaked White House poll it has revealed that more than half of the American public support the TikTok ban. As reported by USA Today 57% of all Americans agree with the President’s move to ban the app.
This comes after President Trump banned any dealings with the Chinese owners of TikTok at the beginning of this week. The ban would come into force unless a U.S. company bought the American side of TikTok.
Microsoft quickly joined the race to acquire the app. Additionally, as Phone Arena reported Twitter is in discussions with the app for some sort of collaboration.
TikTok themselves expressed their shock and disdain at the decision of President Trump. The story took another twist at the music video app began plans to file a lawsuit against the American administration. There was some suggestion that this ban would cause public outcry but this poll indicates the opposite.
Majority of Americans support TikTok ban
Harris Poll data demonstrates that in fact, most Americans support the ban on TikTok. Although somewhat unsurprisingly, 64% of adult TikTok users opposed the ban.
There is also some suggestion that the original poll of Americans is slightly unrepresentative. It only took into account adults and given TikTok’s prevalence within the teen demographics the result may have differed had it included younger demographics.
Poll reveals Americans share security concerns about TikTok
Despite the issues surrounding the representative nature of the poll and the skewing of the data when TikTok users were involved, it is also clear that most Americans are worried about the behaviour of TikTok and its links to China.
The poll revealed that 62% of Americans thought TikTok posed a national security threat. This was due to its links to China.
In addition, 67% of Americans expressed concerns that the Chinese are using personal data collected by TikTok. Even 59% of TikTok users agreed with this sentiment.
Leaked document reveals U.S. plans to impact TikTok operations
Added to all of this Reuters has reported that a leaked White House document reveals the plans to disrupt TikTok operations. This includes cutting it off from funding, and removing it from the app store. This would see the app disappear for many and make it impossible to purchase advertising on the app.
This would likely severely dampen the growth of the app in the U.S. The ban will take place on Sept 16. James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert, said, “That kills TikTok in the U.S.” He agreed that the rules would not stop downloads from foreign websites.
However, in the mainstream, this would be a huge impact on Tiktok. The company still maintains that data collected is stored on servers in the U.S. and Singapore. Therefore, it is not shared with the Chinese government. However, the American public clearly display doubts about this.
This story is likely to run and run until the ban comes into force. TikTok’s main way out seems to be to sell the U.S. portion of its operations which could well happen. However, such an acquisition would take time meaning this is not a quick and easy solution.