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On Friday, Delta Air Lines announced that employees were no longer permitted to use TikTok on their personal phones if those same devices were accessed any work-related systems.
The airline cited the White House ban on contractors using TikTok, or any applications owned by parent company ByteDance, on devices or networks used to perform work for the government. This is applicable to Delta because the carrier sells government fares and offers charter flights. It would not want to do anything to jeopardize these valuable contracts. Employees who use their personal phones to access any Delta system (including e-mail, scheduling, etc.) have until the end of the day on Friday to delete the app.
This follows a similar policy enacted by Southwest Airlines last week. Southwest said that it would block the app from its network, but did not state that it would impose restrictions on personal device usage. It does not appear that United Airlines or American Airlines have released rules around TikTok usage, yet.
TikTok has skyrocketed in popularity and in the process has raised privacy concerns among government officials. Concerns center around the idea that the parent company, ByteDance, might be swayed to use data collected on its American audience to provide intelligence to the Chinese government.
Delta manages its own TikTok channel. It currently has over 512,000 followers. No word has been released on whether it will discontinue posting there.
Anthony’s Take: The primary concern here seems to be the potential revenue loss associated with losing lucrative government contracts. It is still unknown if any of the fears around espionage are warranted.
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2 comments
Excellent news!
Stop using CCP’s spying and manipulating tool.
It’s already known that TikTok data harvests nearly everything you do on the device you’re using the app on, so quite frankly I’m shocked more companies haven’t enacted the same policy. But really it’s a win for the employees, its forced work life balance by Delta.