Reports: Amazon bars video app TikTok on workers' phones

Reports: Amazon bars video app TikTok on workers' phones

SeattlePI.com

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Amazon has told employees to delete the popular video app TikTok from phones on which they use Amazon email, citing security risks from the China-owned app, according to reports and posts by Twitter users who said they were Amazon employees.

The notice said employees must delete the app by Friday to keep access to Amazon email. Workers would still be allowed to use TikTok from an Amazon laptop browser.

Amazon is the second-largest U.S. private employer after Walmart, with with more than 840,000 employees worldwide. Amazon did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

In an emailed statement, TikTok said that Amazon did not notify it before sending the email. “We still do not understand their concerns,” it continued, adding that the company would welcome a dialogue to address Amazon's issues.

Chinese internet giant ByteDance owns TikTok, which is designed for users outside of China, as well as a Chinese version called Douyin. The app is popular with young people, including millions of American users, but is the subject of national security concerns.

TikTok has been trying to appease critics in the U.S. and distance itself from its Chinese roots, but finds itself caught in an increasingly sticky geopolitical web.

TikTok recently named a new CEO, t op Disney executive Kevin Mayer, which experts said could help it navigate U.S. regulators. And it is stopping operations in of Hong Kong because of a new Chinese national security law that led Facebook, Google and Twitter to also stop providing user data to Hong Kong authorities.

But a top Trump administration official said this week that the government remains concerned about the national-security threat to the app's millions of U.S. users. When Fox News TV host Laura Ingraham suggested that the U.S. ban Chinese social media apps, “especially TikTok,”...

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