‘Rooted in xenophobia’
TikTok has said that such restrictions are “rooted in xenophobia”, while insisting that it is not owned or operated by the Chinese government.
The company’s Australian spokeswoman Lee Hunter said it would “never” give data to the Chinese government.
“Nobody is working hard enough to make sure it’s never going to be possible,” he told Australia’s Channel Seven.
But the firm admitted in November that some employees in China could access European user data, and said in December that employees had used the data to spy on journalists.