TikTok downplays Chinese communist party links: BBG
TikTok downplayed Chinese communist party links in its latest Australia hearing, according to Bloomberg. Yahoo Finance's On The Move panel discuss.
Video Transcript
JULIE HYMAN: TikTok's latest-- apparently they are downplaying their ties to the Communist Party in China. But they're not doing that downplaying here in the US, which is kind of interesting. They're doing it, what, in Australia?
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, this is Australia and New Zealand. They're basically having hearings and discussions about TikTok and Chinese party, Communist Party influence on the app. And it just goes to show you that this isn't just the US bringing up these issues. It's countries throughout the world.
In fact, India banned the app outright in July, along with several other Chinese apps. They have an ongoing dispute with China [INAUDIBLE] the trading of fire between Chinese and Indian troops that resulted in deaths. And so this is an issue that's just related to geopolitics on a grand scale.
So it's not merely TikTok in the US. It's absolutely beyond that. And we know that other countries are looking into this in the same fashion. So it's more along the lines of-- more recently we've heard discussed the soft power that China wants to wield through apps like TikTok.
And that seems to be where a lot of the discussion now is heading, less about the data collection and the security, though that's still there for sure. The discussions in the US now, and along with Australia, talking about how much China can project itself from apps like TikTok.