Taiwan is reportedly looking into Douyin International, the Chinese counterpart of the immensely famous TikTok, for allegedly expanding its social media business unlawfully in the island nation as well as referring instances involving connected operators to law enforcement for inquiry.

According to sources, the Executive Yuan's Mainland Affairs Council took notice of Beijing-based app developer ByteDance establishing a subsidiary in violation of a statute barring several Chinese corporations, including social media companies, from opening offices in Taiwan.

As per Liberty Times' citation of a Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) official, Douyin and TikTok (international version) have been determined to be harmful services against national information security. Moreover, some entrepreneurs registered and incorporated ByteDance Taiwan Co. Ltd. in November 2022 and advertised the company's social networking with the short video hosting platform.

Notably, mainland Chinese social media platforms are prohibited from functioning in Taiwan under Taiwanese law, with violators facing up to three years in prison. Besides, the government has outlawed the use of smartphones and computers built in mainland China, owing to concerns about information security.

Despite having fewer users than Facebook and Instagram in Taiwan, TikTok is growing in popularity among teenagers.

Tang Feng, Taiwan's minister for digital development, announced that an inter-ministerial conference will be held by the end of December 2022 to debate whether to outright forbid the usage of the short video platform Douyin, created by a mainland Chinese corporation, in Taiwan.

The Mainland Affairs Council of Taiwan cited in a statement in response to the potential security threats of the short video-sharing platform TikTok that the mainland has utilized this app to penetrate other nations with cognitive operations and acquire personal data from users for the Chinese government, drawing the attention of many countries who have since taken appropriate countermeasures.

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https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/taiwan-investigating-chinese-app-tiktok-over-cyber-security-concerns-122122000079_1.html