TikTok confidants – Business – Kommersant

As efforts by governments around the world intensify to check, restrict or even ban the activity of the social network TikTok, the number of its advocates is increasing at the expense of well-known and often highly influential politicians. For all the difference in their views, they are united by a certain touch of marginality and service to the fight against what they consider excessive state interference in the lives of citizens.

Last week, Montana became the first US state to impose a total ban on the TikTok app, confirming a global trend. Authorities in various countries of the world, from australia and India to U.S.A And Great Britain, are busy studying the popular social network TikTok, the likely influence of the Chinese government and intelligence agencies on it, and the potential harm that the activity of the social network can have on the security of the country and citizens. However, there is also a reverse trend. As noted Financial Timesmore and more politicians from all walks of life and from all over the world are starting to publicly defend TikTok.

One of the brightest and most radical representatives of the US Democratic Party, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in her first video after registering on the social network, said that it was necessary not to “ban individual companies, but actually protect American citizens from the data collection that companies can do.

Republican Senator Rand Paul, who usually holds completely opposite views, took the side of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on the issue of banning TikTok. “Those who fear that the Chinese government may somehow now have access to information about millions of American teenagers should understand that all social networks are sucking up voluntarily provided personal data. If you’re going to ban TikTok, then what next?” – noted Senator Rand in his column in the Louisville newspaper Courier Journal.

The ban on TikTok was opposed by Australian Senator David Shubridge, representing the Greens party, and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is considered a far-right populist. Like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, he expressed his attitude to the bans in a video that he posted on his account on this social network, repeating it on Twitter. Extreme dissatisfaction with the decision of the European Parliament to ban its members from using TikTok on official gadgets was expressed by the representative of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the right-wing European People’s Party, Pedro Lopez. He said he had removed the app, but he had no doubt that the decision taken by the European Parliament had a “political rather than logical” explanation.

There is also a logical explanation for the fact that politicians hold diametrically opposed views. For starters, they say banning TikTok is an act of censorship that is totally unacceptable in a democratic society.

In addition, as noted by the Financial Times, the public support for TikTok resonates very well with the opinion of young voters. According to research Pew Research Center, while most Americans support a TikTok ban, young people under the age of 30 strongly oppose the measure.

In addition, the same study found that the main factor in determining support for or disapproval of a ban is the fact that an app is used. While the number of TikTok users is growing (according to Statistafor example, the annual growth in the number of application users can be 15%), it is obvious that many politicians, especially those who are considered marginal, take this into account in determining their position.

Andrey Kelekeyev