Amazon created waves on Friday when it emailed some staff instructing them to delete TikTok from their phones about stability fears tied to the China-owned application.

But hours afterwards an Amazon spokesperson stated the request had been sent out in error and that there was no alter to the company’s insurance policies at the instant.

An internal memo despatched to Amazon workers on Friday morning had supplied them till the close of the working day to delete the app “due to safety risks” or danger shedding cell obtain to firm email accounts.

TikTok has exploded in attractiveness in modern months. The online video application, in which end users share limited films established to songs or dialogue, has been downloaded approximately 2bn times and became the most downloaded app in the planet in the very first quarter of 2020.

But TikTok is experiencing increasing scrutiny from US authorities.

The application has drawn criticism from US politicians considering the fact that its start in 2018. TikTok begun as Musical.ly, a lip-sync app, and was acquired by the Chinese company ByteDance in 2017. The acquisition led to a countrywide protection investigation by the US govt in 2019.

The US army and navy instructed soldiers to delete the application from armed forces gadgets in December.In March, two Republican senators released legislation that would prohibit federal staff members from working with TikTok on federal government-issued work telephones.

And in May possibly, extra than a dozen associates of Congress called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the app for alleged Children’s On line Privateness Protection Act violations.

On Monday, US secretary of point out Mike Pompeo reported the Trump administration was considering banning TikTok because of to nationwide security threats.

The biggest concern with regards to TikTok is that its guardian company, dependent in China, is needed to share information gathered on users with the Chinese govt, mentioned Douglas Schmidt, a cybersecurity skilled and professor of engineering at Vanderbilt College.

“This clearly has issues with regards to privateness for consumers,” he explained.

Schmidt claimed other concerns ended up that the Chinese authorities would use the downloaded software program to surveil exercise and content material on TikTok user phones, significantly of those in the US military services or federal government, or censor content material on TikTok “that doesn’t conform with the Chinese government’s positions on human rights”.

In 2019, leaked interior documents confirmed TikTok instructed moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong. Beforehand it was reported that TikTok was scrubbed of any video clips of Hong Kong protests.

TikTok has been growing its existence in the US, bringing on the California-centered former Disney govt Kevin Mayer as chief govt officer in May well and choosing more lobbyists in Washington DC.

TikTok did not right away answer to request for remark but explained in a assertion that security was “of the utmost importance” to the firm.

“While Amazon did not connect to us right before sending their electronic mail, and we even now do not have an understanding of their fears, we welcome a dialogue,” it said.