After the United States, now Canada has also decided to implement the ban on TikTok, as far as government devices are concerned.
Except that in the case of the country led by Justin Trudeau, the provision just announced by the Prime Minister risks triggering a real political case. Prefiguring it is the fact that the ByteDance social network has been used massively by opposition leaders as a sounding board for their positions.
TikTok Ban in Canada Risks Becoming a Political Case
The Canadian government has announced a ban on TikTok on government devices. Even in this case The measure was motivated by concerns about national security and the suspicion that the app is a sort of Trojan horse for the Beijing government, to which the company could deliver personal data relating to its users, in formidable growth in every part of the globe.
In this case, however, the executive's move could turn into a real political case.
The government's decision has so far been followed by that of officials, both pro-government and opposition, to proceed not only to delete the social media from their devices, but also their accounts.
There have been no reactions so far
So far, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has dutifully followed the order, banning TikTok from his cell phone and deleting his social media account. A decision due to the fact that has an agreement that binds him to support Trudeau's minority government until 2025, which he evidently does not intend to fail to do so as not to give rise to doubts about his reliability.
Singh himself had a wide success on TikTok, thanks to the posting of videos of him performing dance moves and various pirouettes during the 2021 general elections, as well as other videos showing scenes from his family life. Thanks to the skillful use of these materials, he has managed to amass a good 800 thousand followers, with whom he will no longer be able to interact in the same way. Four times the 200 that Poilievre boasts, who has also decided to avoid government-related media in Ottawa.
An appeal very different from that of the liberals in government, who have never relied excessively on this communication tool. Explaining this apparent contradiction, in a society that is increasingly showing itself to be social, was Nik Nanos, president of Nanos Research, according to whom those in government prefer traditional media, where they have more opportunities to appear. Unlike opposition politicians, who in the absence of this kind of platform rely on social media. A TikTok ban therefore damages them in a very significant way.
A real problem
The disappearance of a tool like TikTok represents a real problem of democracy. This is demonstrated by a recent survey conducted by Insider Intelligence, according to which Nine million Canadians will use the app this year, a number expected to rise to ten by 2025. That is, a quarter of the total population of the North American state.
Numbers that make us understand the importance not only of TikTok, but also of the decision taken to ban it on government devices. A political problem that, however, could become even bigger if this ban were extended to all citizens of a country, as is proposed to do in the United States, after the vote of the chamber commission that gave Biden the possibility of issuing ostracism to TikTok throughout the national territory. It now remains to be seen whether Canada will also want to follow Washington's path and the possible reactions within Canadian society if this were to happen. At this rate, however, not only Chinese social, but all existing ones could become a sort of hostage of political power.
