Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on 17th October 2019 attacked the trending Chinese short-video app and said that it censored political protest which also includes the United States. Zuckerberg, while delivering an address on free speech at Georgetown University in Washington said “Facebook social media platforms like WhatsApp were used by protesters and activists everywhere because of its encryption and privacy protection. But on TikTok, the Chinese app growing quickly around the world, mentions of these same protests are censored, even here in the US". TikTok did not approve China censors its content and said “it is not influenced by any foreign government." Facebook has taken pedge now to leave TikTok not easily and competes directly with it. This is done especially for younger audiences who are addicted to TikTok. The short-video making app allows the users to create and share short singing and dancing videos along with filters. In a recording which was leaked recently, Zuckerberg was seen saying to his company employees that TikTok was the first successful Chinese Internet product across the world. "It's starting to do well in the US, especially with young folks." Two week ago Senator Marco Rubio argued that to censor politically sensitive content, TikTok is used by the Chinese government and asked a U.S. national security panel to review TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology's acquisition of Musical.ly Inc. Rubio wrote a requesting letter for review and he noted that “despite Hong Kong protests dominating international headlines for months, the app only had a few videos" of the protests. Rubio said “Chinese-owned apps are increasingly being used to censor content and silence open discussion on topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese Government and Communist Party." And just after 2 weeks of this letter, Mark Zuckerberg made this statement.
