Australia Does Not Participate In Prohibition Of TikTok On Government Devices

Australia does not prohibit TikTok on government devices. (photo: dock. Pixabay)

JAKARTA - TikTok, a video sharing app from China, has not yet been banned by the Australian government for use on government officials. The statement was made by Australian Deputy Prime Minister Jim Chalmers on Wednesday, March 1.

Previously, Canada and the European Parliament had banned the use of TikTok on their government apparatus citing concerns about user data access. On Monday, February 27, the White House awarded a 30-day deadline for government agencies to ensure that they did not use TikTok on their federal devices.

Chalmers stated that the Australian government would follow the advice of national security agencies. However, until now the government has not received any advice on banning the use of TikTok on government devices.

The increasing concern about the use of TikTok by the Chinese government to collect user data for political purposes and interfere in the internal affairs of other countries is the main reason behind this ban.

Reuters reported last week that the European Commission also imposed a similar ban, while in December 2020, the United States Senate had approved a ban on the use of TikTok on government-owned devices. India has also banned the use of TikTok in 2020.

In addition to data security reasons, the government of a country can also ban TikTok for national security reasons, public security, misor detrimental information dissemination, and copyright infringement or intellectual property rights.

So far, TikTok has been reported in a number of countries, including Indonesia, having problems related to content containing pornography and violence on their platforms. Some TikTok users have shared inappropriate content and violated TikTok's content policies, including content containing violence, bullying, and pornography.

However, TikTok has been working to address this issue by tightening their policies and algorithms to filter and remove content that violates their policies.

TikTok also encourages users to report inappropriate content or violate their policies so that they can be removed immediately. However, this issue is still a concern for users and authorities in several countries.