One of the Democratic Party’s leading figures, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who is head of the United States Senate intelligence committee, has said former President Donald Trump was right when it came to the security risks around the Chinese-owned TikTok.
“This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago,” said Warner during a visit to Australia, reported The Sydney Moring Herald on Oct. 25.
“If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok, if your population uses WeChat as a social media platform, the ability for China to have undue influence is, I think, a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict.”
Warner, who is currently in Australia to engage with local intelligence chiefs, politicians, and business people, also warned about the technological domination that the Chinese regime is exerting over other countries, calling it scary.
“China having this kind of technology domination in a number of countries ought to scare the heck out of us because we’ve seen the kind of Orwellian surveillance state they’ve already created within China,” he said.
Australia is Concerned About Tiktok
The U.S. is not the only country concerned about Tiktok.
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has ordered cybersecurity authorities to investigate social media giant’s data collection security.
O’Neil, who is also the cybersecurity minister, has called on Australians who use TikTok to be cautious of the app’s data collection.
“I’d say to Australians: if you’re using TikTok, think about what data of yours might be being collected, and know that we’re not always 100 percent confident of how that data’s being used,” O’Neil said on an Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) TV program on Sept. 5.
“We do need to take precautions in this digital age.”
