KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 — Government agency CyberSecurity Malaysia is investigating allegations that downloading TikTok on your mobile devices is dangerous, the Communications and Digital Ministry said today.
Its minister Fahmi Fadzil also said that the government will review allegations that the platform's moderators are biased towards certain political coalitions.
"On the European Union banning senior officials from downloading TikTok, I've asked Cybersecurity Malaysia to investigate the source of concerns.
"They've been tasked with checking the allegations made by the EU as well as what they were suspicious of. If there is any matter that arises that we need to consider since this involves personal and sensitive data we will take the necessary steps," he told the press here.
This came after a report by the European Union (EU) that it has banned employees from downloading the app on their work phones due to cybersecurity issues.
The European Union’s executive branch said last week it had temporarily banned TikTok from phones used by employees as a cybersecurity measure.
The EU’s action followed similar moves in the US, where more than half of the states and Congress have banned TikTok from official government devices.
TikTok is wildly popular, but its Chinese ownership has raised fears that Beijing could be collecting data on western users or pushing pro-China narratives and misinformation. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020.
In addition, Fahmi also addressed accusations that TikTok is acting biased with the content it allows on the platform.
"I've also seen people making assumptions that the 4,000 TikTok moderators are biased towards one political party.
"I've been in touch with TikTok as these are serious allegations and if true this means some people have managed to infiltrate the company.
"We'll need to do some due diligence and also we don't want people to think they've been oppressed and spreading this misinformation is wrong too," he added.
