The Executive Yuan is delaying a decision to ban TikTok nationwide as government departments are examining the feasibility of such a measure, spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said yesterday at a weekly news conference.
Lo made the comment in response to a question about reports that the Cabinet is seeking to outlaw the popular Chinese app.
The short video platform owned by China-based ByteDance Co (字節跳動) has sparked national security fears in many countries.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
FBI Director Christopher Wray last month said that the app is a threat to US security.
Officials are studying the legal ramifications of a ban, and whether measures adopted by other countries have been successful, Lo said.
The Executive Yuan is not directing a policy decision, and is waiting for feasibility studies to be concluded, he said.
The Cabinet has assembled a task force to ensure that a 2020 prohibition on government offices from using Chinese social media platforms, including TikTok, is being adhered to, Lo said.
The task force is additionally to study the effects of Chinese-owned social media apps being used nationwide, he said.
The Ministry of Education has been conducting a drive to raise public awareness of the possibility that TikTok could be used by Beijing to spread disinformation and wage cognitive warfare against the country, in addition to its negative effects on children’s well-being, Lo said.
Taiwan’s ban on government workers’ use of TikTok is in line with actions taken by other countries, he added.
India is the only country to impose a nationwide ban on TikTok, although its efficacy remains unknown, Lo said.
“More discussion and data gathering is required before we can conclude that a ban would work, and to know whether other countries have achieved their intended results,” he said.
“Any prohibition or regulation that can affect the freedoms and lives of Taiwanese must be weighed carefully by the government,” he said.
When asked if a TikTok ban would be discussed at the Executive Yuan’s Boxing Day cybersecurity conference, Lo said that the event participants would discuss cybersecurity threats in general, including those posed by other Chinese platforms.
Social media users in India have been able to bypass the block with a virtual private network, or by changing the region settings on their phones, which is an issue being studied by Taiwan’s representative office in India, a person familiar with the matter said.
The government in Taipei faces a greater number of legal constraints in its regulatory powers than India does, the person said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS