Tensions between China and America are not new. The political situation between both the countries has worsened and their ties have tightened over the passage of a couple of past years. Since 2019, both countries have begun cyber-wars too, with Donald Trump’s administration playing a key role in fueling the feud.
The famous short-form video-sharing app TikTok has faced major allegations of intrusive data collection of American users and then providing it to the Chinese government. The US government filed lawsuits against the Chinese app citing that it is a risk for the national security, followed by Trump’s threats of imposing a ban on the app in America if ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company does not sell off its US operations to an American investor. Talks between ByteDance and potential investors began, but Trump’s rigid stance and his continued deadlines and threats prompted the Chinese government to bring a new set of rules of the trade of technology supporting AI, amongst other things related to trading. Because of these restrictions, the companies involved in tech trade will now have to take licenses and they dictate that the Chinese company will only sell the app, not the algorithm.
The countries were already in a tech war, but because of these latest developments, the tech war turned colder. China had already banned American tech apps like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, etc., but now, TripAdvisor also joins them.
The 105 apps that have been removed violated one of three cyber laws of the Cyberspace Administration of China.
China removed these apps on the basis that they contained content related to violence, pornography, prostitution, or gambling. Most of these apps are Chinese, but TripAdvisor is American, and it is quite surprising that it has been banned because of a violation of Chinese cyber laws around these above-mentioned offenses.
TripAdvisor is a travel platform where people find reviews about various hotels, traveling options, restaurants, travel guides, etc. China has not provided many details about these banned apps.
TripAdvisor gets banned as a US district judge rules against the ban of TikTok.
Ironically, if China had banned TripAdvisor when the US had banned TikTok, that would still have made some sense. Here, the opposite has happened. The US district judge Carl Nichols has ruled against the planned ban of TikTok in America, citing that he is in the favor of the app and Trump had overstepped his authority when he alleged TikTok to be a threat for the US national security.
So, while this was happening in the US, TripAdvisor was seeing a different fate in China.
Most of the apps that have been banned contained offensive content.
It still does not make sense that why TripAdvisor was included amongst the banned apps? The Cyberspace Administration has not provided any reasons for TripAdvisor at least, so far. Because as much as it is known, TripAdvisor is a pretty decent and helpful platform for the public and people use it very frequently whenever they are planning to travel.
I’m Ava Paul, an experienced news website author with a special focus on the entertainment section. Over the past five years, I have worked in various positions of media and communication at World Stock Market. My experience has given me extensive knowledge in writing, editing, researching and reporting on stories related to the entertainment industry.
