Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says a U.S. ban on TikTok would be beneficial in the “short term” but shared his concerns about the longer-term implications of “singling out a single technology company.”
“We’d love that in the short term,” Spiegel said in an interview with Kara Swisher at the tech and social platform’s Snap Partner Summit on Wednesday. “I do think it is important for us to be thoughtful and really develop a regulatory framework to deal with national security concerns, especially around technology. And I think based on the information that is publicly available, there are legitimate national security concerns far above my pay grade and security clearance.”
TikTok has faced massive scrutiny from Congress based on data and privacy concerns due to its ownership by the Beijing-based company ByteDance, even though there has not been evidence that TikTok has handed over American user data to the Chinese government. To help assuage concerns about user data safety, TikTok has also been in the process of rolling out Project Texas, a $1.5 billion plan meant to keep TikTok’s U.S. operations and data protected from foreign interference.
As TikTok’s fate in the U.S. still remains uncertain, state governments have already taken steps to ban the app. Last week, the Republican-controlled Montana House of Representatives passed a bill that would make it illegal to download the TikTok app in the state. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte is expected to sign the bill into law. In a statement on April 14, TikTok said the “bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices” and asserted that the move would be “decided by the courts.”
