House of Representatives bans staff use of 'high risk' TikTok
Staff and lawmakers in the House of Representatives have been ordered to uninstall TikTok from their iPhones, iPads, and Android devices.

TikTok on a smartphone
The US government has previously threatened to ban TikTok from the App Store entirely, though deadlines for Apple and Google to comply were xjref. More recently, despite the issue being outside the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr has been pressing for a total ban.
Now according to CNBC, the House of Representatives has instigated an immediate ban on the video-sharing service for all its staff.
The House's Chief Administrative Officer Catherine L. Szpindor reportedly issued a memo after her cybersecurity staff concluded that TikTok represented a "high risk to users due to a number of security risks."
Consequently, staff and lawmakers were directed to either not download the app, or to uninstall it if they had already got it on their phones.
"House staff are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices," said the memo seen by CNBC. "If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it."
CNBC notes that part of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress earlier in December, includes a TikTok ban. That bill's measure regarded a ban of the app from some government devices, plus all executive branch devices, though not members of Congress and their staff.
Similarly, the new directive from the House does not apply to the Senate.
TikTok has not commented publicly on the ban, however it has previously said that it was working to "meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level."
"These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country's top national security agencies -- plans that we are well underway in implementing -- to further secure our platform in the United States," said the company, "and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them."
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TikTok on a smartphone
The US government has previously threatened to ban TikTok from the App Store entirely, though deadlines for Apple and Google to comply were xjref. More recently, despite the issue being outside the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr has been pressing for a total ban.
Now according to CNBC, the House of Representatives has instigated an immediate ban on the video-sharing service for all its staff.
The House's Chief Administrative Officer Catherine L. Szpindor reportedly issued a memo after her cybersecurity staff concluded that TikTok represented a "high risk to users due to a number of security risks."
Consequently, staff and lawmakers were directed to either not download the app, or to uninstall it if they had already got it on their phones.
"House staff are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices," said the memo seen by CNBC. "If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it."
CNBC notes that part of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress earlier in December, includes a TikTok ban. That bill's measure regarded a ban of the app from some government devices, plus all executive branch devices, though not members of Congress and their staff.
Similarly, the new directive from the House does not apply to the Senate.
TikTok has not commented publicly on the ban, however it has previously said that it was working to "meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level."
"These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country's top national security agencies -- plans that we are well underway in implementing -- to further secure our platform in the United States," said the company, "and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them."
AppleInsider will be covering the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in person on January 2 through January 8 where we're expecting Wi-Fi 6e devices, HomeKit, Apple accessories, 8K monitors and more. Keep up with our coverage by downloading the AppleInsider app, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos throughout the event.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalists
🤣
https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-spying-internal-report-us-users
It’s been reported on everywhere — ByteDance used TikTok data to spy on Americans and journalists.
https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-spying-internal-report-us-users
TikTok is a spy device for the CCP.
Perhaps 2023 will bring a consistent level of comment freedom under all articles for a refreshing change.
Why "refreshing"? Because I enjoy reading the comments about as much, and sometimes more, than the articles under which the comments are found. It also reflects positively on AppleInsider who isn't scared by freer speech. I think it has the potential to bring more people into the forum dialog, which in turn could enhance readership.
Anyway, thank you AppleInsider for comment freedom under this article. Keep it up!
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Now for those of you who actually like TikTok, I am guess you must either be much younger people or new tech thrill seekers. I believe in staying young at heart, but not much really appeals to me about short videos of mostly young females dancing around or lip-syncing to current music on TikTok. Probably why YouTube's copy-cat "shorts" or FaceBook "Reels" don't really interest me either. Those short videos basically boil down to a modern way to waste one's time. At least with a full length YouTube video or a FaceBook group about vintage Macs I have the potential to learn something new and practical such that it really DOESN'T waste my time.
As to the US government security implications, well, I don't trust the US government a whole lot more than the Chinese government, although China does crack down on its people far more and do even more stupidly outlandish (and horrific) things. The consistent CENSORSHIP of speech upsets me most, which makes China lower on the scale of trust than the US government. Even so, all governments need to come under scrutiny by individual citizens. Indeed, citizens need to have the power and right to throw out a bad government and replace it with a new if they ultimately find a system is broken beyond repair. But when two super-power governments are rivals, spyware and other tactics will often be used. In the end, average people are always caught in the middle. It's sad that humanity is so fragile and imperfect so as to need the iron fist of government. And I am no anarchist either. Because governments are basically the creations of average people, we average people are basically our own demise. We ultimately just float along through life trying to make something reasonably good of an overall bad situation.
Private devices in a controlled environment are a challenge for infosec and security in general. In general all managed systems are air-gapped from external points of ingress. It is possible to create a very secure environment but doing so is very expensive and potentially disruptive to productivity. But there are obviously cases and agencies where it’s totally nonnegotiable. The biggest threats to government systems imho come from nonprofessionals, I.e., political appointees who are allowed to circumvent rules and procedures that the professional and career employees would be fired on the spot for not following. It’s just one of the “oddities” of the US form of government, where totally clueless idiots are often put in charge of some of the most critical systems known to man.
By the way, someone mentioned that non military government employees should be able to basically do whatever they want in their personal lives. This is not the case when those people have government issued security clearances. This applies to both government employees with security clearances but also to individuals in private industry who’ve been granted government security clearances. The agencies who grant those clearances can totally get up in your shorts as a condition for you having the security clearance, up to and including revoking your clearance for violating laws or engaging in activities that seemingly have nothing to do with your job. If your employer requires you to obtain a government security clearance as a condition of employment you can lose your job.
I know you're out there
You're in hiding, and you hold your meetings
I can hear you coming
I know what you're after
We're wise to you this time (wise to you this time)
We won't let you kill the laughter“
TikTok