Close to half of Americans favor TikTok ban: Reuters-Ipsos poll
China. TikTok, owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance and used by tens of millions of Americans, has faced calls from U.S. lawmakers for a nationwide ban over concerns about possible Chinese government influence.
Some 47% of respondents to the two-day poll, which concluded on Tuesday, said they at least somewhat supported «banning the social media application, TikTok, from use in the United States,» while 36% opposed a ban and 17% said they didn't know. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans favored a ban, compared to 47% of Democrats, the poll showed. The survey also revealed deep worries among Americans about China's global influence at a time when U.S.-China relations have fallen to their lowest point in decades.
The online Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted nationwide, collecting responses from 1,005 adults, including 443 Democrats and 346 Republicans. It had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points in either direction. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in March that China's government could use TikTok to control software on millions of devices and drive narratives to divide Americans, adding that the app «screams» of national security concerns.
Other top U.S. intelligence officials, including CIA Director William Burns, also have said TikTok poses a threat. TikTok said in a statement that more than 150 million Americans, including 5 million U.S.
businesses, actively use TikTok to earn a living, engage in the classroom, and find community. «We've taken unprecedented actions to safeguard protected U.S. user data, and we will continue working to build a safe, secure, and inclusive platform to ensure the positive experience of our users in every corner of the country,» a TikTok spokesperson
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