The US Navy is banning TikTok from government-issued devices because it’s a “threat”

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TikTok videos of teenagers and adults lip-syncing popular meme-tastic songs or creating silly music-focused skits appear to be everywhere.

It’s so widely used that, as TIME reports, the US military has been controversially and strangely using TikTok as a recruitment tool. Although, November saw the Army put an official stop to using the app after Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) began to show concern.

Now, the Navy is taking a page out of the Army’s handbook as Reuters reports that members of the Navy will no longer able to download it on the United States Marine Corps Intranet. An official bulletin says that the organization wants to start looking into the probable issues with the app since it hosts videos of active Navy servicemen and women.

Last month, Congress started to look into the potential dangers of the app. Sen. Tom Cotton joins Schumer in this examination as they see issues with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, requesting private information from its users.  Not to mention, if data were to leak from TikTok’s servers, that could spell disaster for Navy and all the other 26.5M users in America.

TikTok cannot be used by the Navy due to potential cybersecurity threats

Despite reports from Vice of the Beijing-based company not housing or sharing data from its US users, there is still a certain level of concern from government officials. The Navy has not named any specific threat, aside from the usual ones, like location-sharing, that go along with apps. Director of Public Affairs for U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, David Benham, spoke with USA Today about the Navy’s decision.

This decision was made based on cybersecurity threat assessments, and is consistent with 10th Fleet efforts to proactively address existing and emerging threats in defense of our networks.

Even with those concerns, TikTok is still accessible on personal phones. Also, the Navy Intranet allows other social media platforms, like Facebook, to be downloaded on government-issued smartphones. Which is nice, because we all know Facebook doesn’t track your location or sell your data.

What do you think? Surprised that the US Navy is taking these steps? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Colin Barry

I like honey roasted peanuts because they are delicious. I also like the Metal Slug games and X-Men comics because they are awesome.