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Estonian FM Margus Tsahkna has accused the social media app of election manipulation, an allegation the Chinese-owned platform previously denied
The EU should consider banning TikTok, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said on Monday, citing the app’s potential security risks, as well as its alleged role in spreading disinformation.
His comments came after the Chinese-owned app briefly ceased working in the US late Saturday as ByteDance, its parent company, failed to meet a January 19 deadline to divest its American operations. This came after the US Supreme Court upheld a federal law passed last year requiring ByteDance to sell the popular social media platform to a US company or face a shutdown amid fears that China’s involvement posed a national threat.
“Over the past years, we’ve witnessed TikTok spreading disinformation and being a platform for election manipulations… Banning TikTok must be considered in Europe as well,” Tsahkna said in a post on X, adding that the app’s “vast data collection” is also “known to pose a serious security risk.”
In an interview with the news portal EER the same day, Tsahkna also claimed there were examples of TikTok being used for interference in “democratic processes.”
“The clearest example of this came recently from Romania, where the results of the first round of presidential elections were annulled after it was discovered that Russia had interfered through an extensive online campaign,” he told ERR.
Contrary to the Estonian FM’s claims, an investigation has shown that it was in fact Romania’s pro-EU liberal party that paid for the TikTok campaign that allegedly boosted the popularity of the election first-round winner, the right-wing anti-NATO Calin Georgescu.
Moscow has also repeatedly dismissed the claims that it could have interfered in the Romanian election. TikTok his similarly denied the allegations, stating that it monitors and removes content that in any way “misleads people or manipulates our systems.”
Tsahkna claimed that platforms such as TikTok do not provide balanced information but serve as tools for “spreading biased content.”
“TikTok is not media, it is a weapon of influence,” he stated. The minister said that the app’s data collection practices also raise concerns, particularly since TikTok is owned by a Chinese company.
“There is a legitimate concern that the data could end up in the hands of Chinese authorities,” he claimed, citing a report last year by the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service that claimed the platform collects information that could be used for intelligence gathering, blackmail or even cyberattacks, Tsahkna said.
TikTok was restored for US users on Sunday after President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to issue an executive order to reverse the app’s shutdown and extend the deadline for compliance with the law by 90 days.
“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. He also pitched a plan to seek US acquisition of a 50% stake in TikTok through a joint venture, in order to both “protect our national security” and keep the “hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions” which the app makes within the country.
