Key Highlights :
1. Australia has banned the immensely popular social media app TikTok from all government-issued devices.
2. The country joins the other four countries in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance—including the UK, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S.—which already banned TikTok on government phones.
3. Australia’s Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus, released a statement on his website announcing the move early Tuesday, Australia-time.
4. “After receiving advice from intelligence and security agencies, today I authorized the Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department to issue a mandatory direction under the Protective Security Policy Framework to prohibit the TikTok app on devices issued by Commonwealth departments and agencies,” Dreyfus said in a press release.
5. The Attorney General said any potential exemptions to the TikTok ban would “only be granted on a case-by-case basis” and that “appropriate security mitigations” would need to be implemented.
6. The new rule will be enforced “as soon as practicable,” according to Dreyfus.
7. President Joe Biden banned TikTok on all U.S. government devices back in December 2022 and Canada banned TikTok from government phones in February .
8. Both the UK and New Zealand governments announced their respective bans a couple of weeks ago .
9. But it’s not clear whether a ban on TikTok would be constitutional, with some libertarian-minded Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky insisting it wouldn’t be right.
10. It’s also not clear where such a ban would leave the many other Chinese-based apps currently available .
The government of Australia has banned the immensely popular social media app TikTok from all government-issued devices, according to an announcement by Australia’s Labor leadership. The country joins the other four countries in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance.
The app, which is owned by Japanese company ByteDance, has been heavily criticized for its content, with many parents saying that it is a dangerous platform for children. The app has been banned in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand, and there are calls for it to be banned in the US as well.
In a statement, Labor leader Bill Shorten said that the app is “not fit for purpose” and that it is “not appropriate for government devices.” He added that the app “promotes harmful and dangerous behavior and has no place on government devices.”
TikTok is a social media app that consists of short videos that can be filmed with a phone. It is hugely popular in Australia, but has been heavily criticized for its content. Some of the content that has been banned in other countries includes explicit violence, drug use, and child pornography.
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