TikTok ban reflects US insecurities: China

US government bans on Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok reveal Washington's own insecurities and are an abuse of state power, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said yesterday.

The US government "has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries' companies," Mao Ning said. "How unsure of itself can the US, the world's top superpower, be to fear a favorite young person's favorite app to such a degree?"

TikTok is used by two-thirds of American teens, but there's concern in Washington that China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to try to push misinformation or narratives favoring China.

Congress and more than half of US states have so-far banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices. On Monday, Canada announced it was joining the U.S. in banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices.