The German culture minister calls for TikTok’s European activities to be in European hands. It takes inspiration from the United States and pushes for a change in ownership of the platform.
The European activities of the social network TikTok should be “in European hands”, following the example of the United States, German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer declared on Tuesday. TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance has ceded control of the platform’s US operations to a majority American-owned joint venture in response to pressure from Washington, which threatened to ban its US operations. TASR informs about it based on the AFP report.
“I firmly believe that Europe should follow the American example and that the ownership structure of the company must be discussed,” Weimer told reporters in Brussels. “This means we should put TikTok’s European business in European hands,” he added. “TikTok collects data on European youth on an unimaginably large scale. This data flows to servers whose origin we do not know exactly,” warned the German Minister of Culture.
TikTok is trying to assuage EU concerns, arguing that it stores information about European users in Europe while restricting access to that data. The platform is also under investigation under EU digital content rules. In February, the European Commission warned TikTok that it must change its “addictive design” or face heavy fines. The platform is also the target of a separate investigation that was opened in late 2024 into alleged foreign interference during Romania’s presidential election.
