2 weeks Ago By Simone Lobo
Explainer Briefly Slides Canada has ordered TikTok Technology Canada, Inc, to shut down operations in the country over national security risks in the Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance Ltd. However, the app will remain functional in the country. François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, said in a statement that the decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada’s security and intelligence community and other government partners.
Why is Canada taking action against TikTok? Canada started reviewing TikTok for national security risks in 2023 under the ‘Investment Canada Act’. The law allows the Canadian government to review and enhance scrutiny on foreign investments injurious to national security. In the Tiktok ban announcement, the government said it would “act decisively when investments threaten our national security.
” Earlier in March, in the Policy Statement on Foreign Investment Review in the Interactive Digital Media Sector , the government underlined that “hostile state-sponsored or influenced actors may seek to leverage foreign investments in the interactive digital media sector to propagate disinformation or manipulate information in a manner that is injurious to Canada’s national security.” Canada considers the following factors while assessing a platform’s threat to national security It is worth noting that under Chinese law, ByteDance must report to an internal committee composed of Chinese Communist Party members. The Chinese government holds a 1% stake in ByteDance’s subsidiary, Beijing Douyin Information Service.
Under Chinese national laws, companies must share all information they collect in the People’s Republic of China with the Chinese intelligence services. Similar ban in the US Canada has joined the US in its action against TikTok for threats to national security. On March 5, the US introduced a bill to penalize app stores in the country from listing TikTok.
The ban included any other application developed or provided by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. The bill, called “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” classifies ByteDance as a foreign adversary. It defined a ‘foreign advisory’ as : According to the law, to continue their services in the US, apps and websites owned by ByteDance and TikTok would have to undergo divestiture.
TikTok contesting ban in the US TikTok contested this ban in Court in June 2024, stating that it had engaged with the US government over several years and provided details on how to mitigate security concerns. According to TikTok, the US Congress did not take into account the presentations the company gave to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS). Congress also didn’t consider the plans to mitigate concerns about US data improper access to US data and a floor plan on creating a “transparency center” in collaboration with Oracle In May 2024, it challenged the Act, then a Bill, as unconstitutional, claiming that it violates the Freedom of Speech of American users, a right guaranteed to them under the First Amendment of their Constitution.
Further, it claimed that divestiture, which would entail “severing it from a globally integrated platform of which it is a part,” was not technologically, commercially or legally feasible. Also Read:.
