The Greens have called the federal government’s decision to ban TikTok on all government devices a publicity stunt to mask the Albanese government’s failings on data privacy across the social media spectrum.
Greens party digital rights spokesperson, Senator David Shoebridge, said that banning TikTok is not a serious reform and argued it could just be “the first hammer blow in an endless game of online whack-a-mole.”
“Banning TikTok from government devices is a publicity stunt which masks the fact our data is being exploited by every corporation that can get its hands on it—social media platforms, health apps, the games our children play,” he said.
“We must enshrine principles that all platforms are required to comply with that limit data harvesting and provide strong privacy protections that you can’t surrender with a click.”
The senator also accused the government of failing to protect ordinary Australians, despite spending $10 billion (US$6.8 billion) every year on government data protection via the Australian Signals Directorate.
The Greens want to see the government implement better regulations around harvesting and use of data by social media platforms like Meta, Twitter, Google, and Amazon.
“The ban on TikTok raises further questions about media and technology regulation in Australia. Our laws are out of date and not fit for purpose,” Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“Rather than just resort to a knee-jerk response to one platform, we should be looking more broadly about how we protect Australians from the darker side of Big Tech.
Opposition Calls for Australia-Wide Ban
Meanwhile, a leading proponent of the move to ban TikTok, Coalition spokesperson for CyberSecurity and Countering Foreign Interference Senator James Paterson, has welcomed the government’s move.In a media statement, Paterson said that now that the risk to the government had been addressed, the government must now turn its attention to the “broader cyber security and foreign interference threat posed by TikTok to the millions of other Australian users.”
“We cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to retain unregulated access to their data or a powerful vector to covertly influence our democracy,” Paterson said.
TikTok Ban Brings Australia into Alignment with Allies
The Australian government banned the social media app Tiktok from all government devices following a security review by Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neil amid ongoing international concerns over data security.Concerns around TikTok security have risen after the company admitted last year that employees of its parent company, ByteDance, spied on U.S. journalists from Forbes who were investigating the company.
A team led by ByteDance’s former chief internal auditor, Chris Lepitak, improperly gained access to multiple journalists’ IP addresses and other user data through TikTok and then cross-referenced that data to identify whether the journalists had frequented the same areas as ByteDance employees.
TikTok Denies Data Security Issue
TikTok Australia General Manager Lee Hunter denied any issue with data security, telling The Epoch Times in an email that there is no evidence to suggest TikTok is a security risk.“We are extremely disappointed by this decision, which, in our view, is driven by politics, not by fact. We are also disappointed that TikTok, and the millions of Australians who use it, were left to learn of this decision through the media, despite our repeated offers to engage with the government constructively about this policy,” Hunter said.
“Again, we stress that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is in any way a security risk to Australians and should not be treated differently to other social media platforms.
“Our millions of Australian users deserve a government which makes decisions based upon facts and who treats all businesses fairly, regardless of country of origin.”
