Security News > 2020 > August > TikTok, WeChat Bans Not Crucial to US Security: Experts
The US bans on Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat are not particularly valuable for US security, experts told AFP Friday, but could step up broader commercial pressure on Beijing and help President Donald Trump appear tough as he seeks reelection.
The WeChat ban especially, they say, actually harms a large number of Chinese Americans, US-based Chinese, and businesses working with China, all for whom the app is essential to communications.
An all-in-one tool, WeChat provides messaging, financial transactions, group chats, and social media, all of which is stored on Chinese servers that a 2017 security law says must be accessible by Chinese intelligence.
As US intelligence said Friday that China is opposing Trump's reelection in November, analysts saw the bans as motivated at least in part by the US leader's desire to show he is taking a hard line on Beijing.
Adam Segal, director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said neither WeChat or TikTok should be on the telephones of government officials due to the security risk - the argument invoked by the Republican-led Senate in voting to bar TikTok from government employees' phones.
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