Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says a US ban on TikTok would be beneficial in the “short term” but shared concerns about the longer term implications of “picking a single technology company”.
“We’d love that in the short term,” Spiegel said in an interview with Kara Swisher at the tech and social platform’s Snap Partner Summit on Wednesday. “I think it’s important for us to be attentive and really develop a regulatory framework to address national security issues, especially around technology. And I think, based on the information that is publicly available, there are legitimate national security concerns that are well above my pay grade and security clearance.
TikTok has received massive criticism from Congress based on data and privacy concerns due to its ownership by Beijing-based company ByteDance, though there is no evidence that TikTok has transferred US user data to the Chinese government. To address concerns about user data security, TikTok has also been rolling out Project Texas, a $1.5 billion plan designed to protect TikTok’s U.S. operations and data from foreign interference.
As the fate of TikTok in the US is still uncertain, state governments have already taken steps to ban the app. Last week, Montana’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill that would make it illegal to download the TikTok app in the state. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte is expected to sign into law. In a rack on April 14, TikTok said the “proponents of the bill have admitted they have no viable plan to operationalize this effort to censor American votes” and claimed the move would be decided “by the courts.”
