Americans using the social media network do NOT care who owns the place….
Bu there have been persistent reports the Chinese Government uses the site to mine data about Americans…
Warning’s ahve gone out from the Feds to deaf ears…..
We now have the state of Indiana dropping civil lawsuits against ByteDance the home company siting Security and Content issues….
Indiana’s attorney general on Wednesday sued the Chinese-owned app TikTok for deceiving users about China’s access to their data and for exposing children to mature content, in the first state lawsuits against the popular video service.
Todd Rokita, the attorney general, claimed that TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, violated state consumer protection laws by failing to disclose the Chinese government’s ability to tap sensitive consumer information. His office said in a separate complaint that TikTok deceived young users and their parents with its age rating of 12-plus in Apple’s and Google’s app stores, when in fact inappropriate sexual and substance-related content can be easily found and are pushed by the company to children using the app.
U.S. officials have been fighting for more than two years to ban the wildly popular app or force it to change its ownership structure to reduce its affiliations with China. The app has been swept into the Biden administration’s push to strengthen U.S. tech supply chains and to slow China’s rise as a global innovator and exporter of technology.
Indiana is seeking penalties of up to $5,000 per violation and has asked a state Superior Court to order TikTok to stop false and misleading claims about its handling of data and to stop marketing itself as an app appropriate for young teenagers….
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The Biden administration has been locked in negotiations with TikTok for months over national security concerns related to the app’s data collection and potential data transfers to China. Both Republicans and Democrats have called for a ban of the app. Several states have opened investigations into TikTok over privacy and national security violations, while the Transportation Security Administration, military arms and three states have banned the app’s use on official devices. On Wednesday, the attorney general of Texas ordered state agencies to ban the use of TikTok on all government-issued devices.
In September, British regulators warned TikTok that it could face up to $29 million in fines for violating new laws protecting children’s privacy. The European Commission has also opened investigations into TikTok for allegedly sending the data of E.U. citizens to the Chinese government and for targeting ads to minors…
image…CNBC