An FCC Commissioner claimed that India’s TikTok ban established a “significant precedent” that demonstrated the US might follow the lead.
Brendan Carr predicted that the Chinese-owned app would likely experience a similar fate in the US due to concerns that it is being utilised as a “sophisticated surveillance tool”.
The Us politicians are commenting on banning the app, and the country may outlaw it entirely. The lawmakers are also trying to ban the app, but on an official basis.
Mr Carr said that banning TikTok in India has shown the country’s success in reaching the targetted goal. Furthermore, he added that he “doesn’t see a path forward for anything working other than a blanket ban.”
However, Mr Carr also hinted that those prohibitions might be expanded. In an interview with the Indian Economic Times, he stated, “We need to follow India’s lead more broadly to weed out other nefarious apps as well.”
Hundreds of applications have been outlawed by India in recent years after it claimed they had hazardous ties to China. There was uproar in the nation due to it, which included several well-known applications and games like PUBG Mobile.
According to India, dangers to its national security and defence were the reason the applications were prohibited. The prohibitions were implemented at a time when general tensions between the two countries were rising.
For many years, there has been discussion of outlawing TikTok in US politics. At the very end of Donald Trump’s administration, he issued an order requiring that it be sold or shut down. The next president, Joe Biden, overturned that decision, giving the situation further impetus.
But in recent months, US politicians have once more turned their attention to the possibility of a complete ban in the country. Due to this, the software is now prohibited from being used on federal computers, smartphones, and other devices used by the government in certain states with a strong Republican presence.
As a member of the US Federal Communications Commission’s executive committee, Mr Carr has played a vital role in discussing a prospective ban. Inquiring about TikTok’s alleged data collection and transmission to Beijing, he urged Google and Apple to ban the app from their app stores last summer.
Brendan Carr, Commissioner of the FCC, cautioned that TikTok “operates as a sophisticated surveillance tool” and said that banning the social app is a “logical next step in our efforts to protect communication networks.”
The senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission expressed concern that China may utilise personal information obtained from TikTok. They do so for “blackmail, espionage, foreign influence operations, and monitoring.”
He started to remove other malicious applications, “We need to follow India’s path more generally.” Carr’s comments are another example of the escalating effort by American governments and politicians to regulate TikTok, which has garnered over 100 million users throughout the country.