Some K-pop stars’ accounts have been blocked from view on TikTok’s Chinese version, Douyin (抖音), checks showed yesterday, days after South Korea’s media regulator slapped fines on the short-video app for data privacy noncompliance.
The reasons for the blocks were unknown, but the move also comes after remarks by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the US is “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.
South Korea’s communications regulator on Wednesday fined TikTok Pte Ltd, the publisher of the app, 186 million won (US$154,420) for collecting personal information of children under the age of 14 without consent from guardians and failing to disclose or notify when sending personal information overseas.
Photo: Reuters
TikTok was required to submit voluntary preventative measures within 30 days, and the regulator planned to continue discussions with TikTok on information security issues, an official with the Korea Communications Commission said.
Accounts of K-pop stars such as Rain, TWICE, Mamamoo and HyunA were blocked from view on Douyin as of yesterday.
Douyin and TikTok operated independently and the accounts were working normally on TikTok, a TikTok spokeswoman said.
Representatives for Douyin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok and Douyin are both owned by Chinese company Beijing ByteDance Technology Co (北京字節跳動科技).
The K-pop stars’ management agencies did not comment.
China accumulated 196.6 million downloads of Douyin as of the first quarter of this year, or 9.7 percent of more than 2 billion TikTok downloads in total, according to data from industry site Sensor Tower.
A top White House adviser on Thursday said that he expects TikTok to separate from its Chinese owner and operate as a US company amid growing US concerns about the security of the data handled by the short video app.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters a move by TikTok to leave ByteDance, would be a better option than a ban on the app, which was threatened by Pompeo earlier this month.
“We haven’t made final decisions, but ... I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company,” Kudlow said.
Kudlow did not specify whether TikTok’s ownership would change under the proposed structure. He declined to comment when asked if US companies could acquire TikTok.
When asked about Kudlow’s remarks, a TikTok spokesman said the company would not “engage with speculation in the market,” and referred to a statement last week noting that ByteDance was “evaluating changes to the corporate structure of its TikTok business” and was fully committed to protecting users’ privacy and security.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump’s administration was weighing action against Chinese social media services like TikTok under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president broad powers to penalize companies in response to extraordinary threats, citing people familiar with the matter.
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