Amazon may have backed away from telling employees to uninstall TikTok, but it seems Wells Fargo actually went through with it.
The Information reported that the San Francisco-based financial institution recently told its workers to remove TikTok from any company-issued devices immediately. Apparently there was just a "small number" of employees who had the social video app installed in the first place, according to a statement from Wells Fargo.
Still, the bank felt the need to issue the demand due to TikTok's numerous, well-publicized privacy issues. Whether it's fair or not, TikTok has come under extra scrutiny for these problems because it's owned by Chinese conglomerate ByteDance. The U.S. government has been critical of the app in recent weeks because it doesn't like the idea of Americans' data getting into the hands of the Chinese government, which TikTok maintains it has never facilitated.
While Wells Fargo told its employees to cut off TikTok, Amazon tried to do that on Friday and quickly changed its mind. The same report also noted that after Amazon sent an internal email to employees with a similar demand for workers, executives from Amazon and TikTok hopped on an emergency phone call to hash things out. Mere hours later, Amazon reversed its decision.
This is surely going to keep coming up over time, as TikTok's total downloads now number in the billions. It's too popular to ignore, but in all likelihood, it might be too popular to ban, too.
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Topics Amazon Cybersecurity Privacy
