Dutch coalition party wants total ban on TikTok

The ChristenUnie wants to ban TikTok in the Netherlands. The video app, especially popular among children and teens, comes from China, and there are concerns about how it handles users’ data. “It is our job to protect citizens. TikTok in this form has to be removed from the market,” ChristenUnie MP Don Ceder said to RTL Nieuws.

TikTok has about 3.5 million users in the Netherlands and is the most popular app among children. According to RTL Nieuws, the app allegedly collects as much data as possible and shares it with advertisers and maybe also the Chinese government.

The ChristenUnie, the smallest coalition party in the Rutte IV, has been concerned about TikTok for a long time, Ceder said to RTL. The way the company now operates and handles user data is unacceptable, he said.

“Our job is to protect the privacy of citizens. It is undesirable that a Chinese company, which cannot be seen separately from the Chinese government, receives and sends such a large bulk of data to young people,” Ceder said.

A spokesperson for TikTok told RTL Nieuws that the company is working on this and she will respond “as soon as possible.”