WASHINGTON (US) – Amazon.com Inc on Friday imposed a ban on video sharing app TikTok in employee mobile phones and in the span of a few hours revoked it.
This comes in the wake of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning TikTok, hinting that it shared user information with the Chinese authorities.
Though it is not clear why Amazon banned the app, a source said senior company executives were unaware of the request to delete TikTok from employee handsets. However, it was revoked after TikTok and Amazon representatives discussed the issue.
Wells Fargo, earlier this week, directed its staff to uninstall TikTok on company-owned devices.
“Due to concerns about TikTok’s privacy and security controls and practices, and because corporate-owned devices should be used for company business only, we have directed those employees to remove the app from their devices,” Wells Fargo said in a statement.
“We have not been contacted by Wells Fargo, but as with any organization that has concerns, we are open to engaging with them constructively and letting them know about the actions we have taken to protect data security for our users,” a TikTok spokesman said.
TikTok, which is owned by China, has come under the scanner over issues such as their handling of user data. India banned it along with other Chinese apps last month.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field