With government workers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, and elsewhere recently banned from installing or having TikTok on their official devices, is it time for companies to follow their lead? With greater awareness of allegedly nefarious data-harvesting activity, the clock is ticking.
Political leaders posit that because TikTok is owned by Bytedance, China’s state-linked technology corporation with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, there is a significant cybersecurity risk. The wildly popular social media platform – with 150 million U.S. users, it is currently one of the country’s top-ranking apps – is being used to promote the party’s interests overseas, runs the logic.
Organizations must think hard about whether these two supposed issues are worth not banning the app, and if, on balance, the company and employees benefit more or less from engaging with and using TikTok to inspire and amplify content.
The full version of this article was first published on Digiday’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in April 2023 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.
Oliver Pickup 