Treasury minister Darren Jones said the video-sharing app is banned on government devices. But he added the public ‘posting videos of their cats… doesn’t seem like a national security threat’
Tiktok will not be banned in the UK despite the Chinese-owned social media platform going offline in the United States, a top Labour minister has said.
The comments came just hours after the video-sharing app went dark in the US as a new federal law banning the service came into effect.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said: “We always keep all of these technologies under consideration whether it’s for national security or data privacy concerns.
“We have no plans right now to ban Tiktok from the UK so we won’t be following the same path that the Americans have followed – unless or until at some point in the future there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest then of course we would keep it under review”.
He added: “On government devices we’ve not been allowed to use Tiktok for many years.
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“The last Conservative government took the same position because there’s sensitive information on those devices. But for consumers who want to post videos of their cats, or dancing, that doesn’t seem like a national security threat to me.”
Users who attempted to open the app on Saturday evening were told: ” Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” and prevented them from scrolling on videos.” The message added: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
But it added: “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.”
Mr Trump said it was “an option” to issue a 90-day extension on Monday, as he spoke to Meet The Press moderator Kristen Welker in a phone interview.
The US President-elect said: “The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation. If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”
