Trump Campaign Releases FB Ads w/ Petition Calling For Ban Of Chinese App TikTok

[Gunny]

Another thing I don't use and know very little about other than it is popular. Couldn't pay me to get on it now. Just more subversion from China. China is going to have to be faced down or it's going to own this place.


OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 7:51 AM PT — Sunday, July 19, 2020The Trump campaign recently launched new advertisements on Facebook, which warn that China may be spying on TikTok users.
Facebook users started to notice the advertisements Friday, which were paid for by the Trump: Make American Great Again Committee.
The ads called on users to sign a petition to ban TikTok. They suggested that the video app based in Beijing has been “caught red-handed monitoring phones’ clipboards.”

The campaign’s message came after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested the administration is considering outlawing the app due to these breaches of security earlier this month.
“We have been engaged in a constant evaluation about ensuring we protect the privacy of American citizens and their information that’s in transit,”stated Pompeo. “So, this doesn’t relate to any one particular business or company, but rather to American national security.”
Meanwhile, Instagram will be introducing a competitor app to TikTok called Reels, which is set to be launched in the U.S. as well as dozens of other countries in the coming weeks.
https://www.oann.com/trump-campaign-releases-facebook-ads-featuring-petition-calling-for-ban-of-chinese-app-tiktok/

[Gunny]

July 19, 2020
By Echo Wang
(Reuters) – TikTok has been in discussions with the UK government over the past few months to locate its headquarters in London, a source familiar with the matter said, as part of a strategy to distance itself from its Chinese ownership.
London is among one of several locations the company is considering, but no decisions have been made, the source said.

It was not immediately clear what other locations are under consideration. But it has hired aggressively in California this year, including poaching Kevin Mayer, a former Walt Disney Co executive, to be TikTok’s chief executive. He is based in the United States.
TikTok is facing heavy scrutiny in Washington over suspicions China could force the company to turn over user data. TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance.
The source said the company is largely focused on its issues in the United States over the last few weeks, but has not ruled out London as a potential location for its new headquarters. TikTok is expected to “significantly” increase the size of its workforce in London and other key locations outside of China over the next several years, the source said.
The Sunday Times reported https://bit.ly/2ZHlI1Z Tiktok has broken off talks with the UK government to open a global headquarters in Britain.
A source said Tiktok was still in discussions with Britain’s government.
TikTok declined to comment.
(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)


I would assume most already don't know TikTok is Chinese and currently headquartered in Beijing. A quiet move to a Western location would further cloud its origin to the casual user.

[Gunny]

ByteDance, owner of the video sharing app, has had talks with the government about basing its HQ in London.
But the US is considering banning TikTok and may only allow it to keep operating if it splits from China and becomes an American company.
"We remain fully committed to investing in London," said a ByteDance spokesman.
A spokeswoman for the Department for International Trade said: "ByteDance's decision on the location of their global HQ is a commercial decision for the company."
It comes as tensions mount between the UK and China over the government's recent decision to order the removal of Huawei's 5G equipment from Britain's mobile networks by 2027.

There are fears it could prompt a tit-for-tat economic war between the two countries.
Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, told The Andrew Marr Show: "We are still evaluating the consequences. This is a very bad decision."

Asked whether China would punish UK companies operating in China, Mr Liu said: "We do not want to politicise the economy. That is wrong."
But he said: "It is wrong for the United Kingdom to discriminate [against a] Chinese company because of pressure from the United States."
'In the crosshairs'The US has already implemented a number of sanctions against China's Huawei.
The Trump administration claims that the Chinese telecoms firm provides a gateway for the state to spy on and potentially attack countries that use its equipment.
Huawei strongly denies the claims.
George Magnus, research associate at University of Oxford China Centre, said it was "hard to predict" how the Chinese government would retaliate for the Huawei decision.
"But we expect British companies will be in the crosshairs of all of this," he said.
China is an important market for British business.
Jaguar Land Rover, which is owned by India's Tata Motors, sells its vehicles to China. Last month it borrowed £560m from five Chinese banks after sales dried up because of the coronavirus.
China is also a major investor in the UK, in particular the nuclear industry. China General Nuclear Power Corporation has invested around £3.6bn in the UK, including the Hinkley Point nuclear power project in Somerset.
Josh Hardie, deputy director general of the Confederation of British Industry, said: "Post-Covid, promoting trade will be an important plank of our recovery, so we must think carefully about a future relationship that balances UK global competitiveness with wider interests. "

"We do not want to politicise the economy," Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming claimed to the BBC about potential repercussions for UK businesses based in China after the government U-turn on Huawei.
But given how trade is being used as a political weapon by both sides, it's impossible to see how this could not be the case.
China has form in targeting companies as a proxy for the countries that it is rowing with.
Take Australia, which has blocked Huawei from its national infrastructure since 2012.
China has recently banned some of its beef businesses and put tariffs on barley, designed to hit the country's important agricultural sector.
On the other hand, China is sinking vast sums of money into major infrastructure in the UK, such as nuclear power plants.
Huawei alone is investing £1bn in developing chips in a new facility in Cambridge.
These projects are just part of the deep economic interdependence between the UK and China - which could just still prove to be the glue holding an ever frostier relationship together.
As Emily Taylor of Chatham House's International Security Programme argues: "Mutual dependence creates stability and if that's hacked away at, global stability will suffer."

TikTok currently employs around 1,000 people in Europe, with the majority of those based in the UK and Ireland.
The Sunday Times reported that a decision by TikTok to build its headquarters in the UK has the potential to create 3,000 jobs.
The Chinese video-sharing platform is hugely popular and the app has been downloaded two billion times.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - who is visiting the UK this week - has previously said Washington is considering banning TikTok.

But last week President Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow appeared to change course and said: "As has been reported in some places I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company.
"That's a much better solution than banning [or] pushing away."
Mr Pompeo claims that America's TikTok users are at risk of their data ending up "in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party".
A spokesperson for TikTok said: "We have never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked."
India has already blocked TikTok as well as other Chinese apps. Australia, which has already banned Huawei and telecom equipment-maker ZTE, is also considering banning TikTok.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53462918

Just more info for anyone interested. I have no idea who uses TikTok, but it seems like a bad idea to me. Granted, the ChiComs appear to be in our every orifice already as it is.