German Culture Minister: Europe should follow US example to gain control over TikTok operations
German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer stated that Europe should emulate the US by having TikTok's European operations controlled by Europeans, citing concerns about large-scale data collection from European youth by the Chinese company ByteDance's platform.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: May 12, 2026 at 21:48
- 🔍 Collected: May 12, 2026 at 22:02 (13 min after Published)
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: May 13, 2026 at 03:54 (5h 52m after Collected)
Central News Agency
(Central News Agency, Brussels 12th, comprehensive foreign wire report) German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer said today that Europe should follow the United States' example and have the operations of China's ByteDance-owned popular short-video platform TikTok in Europe "in European hands."
Agence France-Presse reported that because the US government threatened to ban TikTok's operations in the US, ByteDance has traded control of TikTok's local operations to a joint venture with a majority of American shareholders.
Weimer said to media reporters today in Brussels before meeting with cultural officials from other European Union (EU) member states: "I firmly believe that Europe should follow the US example, and I firmly believe that the ownership structure of this company must be discussed, which means we should put TikTok's European operations in European hands."
He pointed out that TikTok "collects data from European youth on an unimaginably large scale" and flows to "servers whose exact origin we do not know," and Europe cannot know where this data goes, and these are "the most private data of European youth."
To reduce the EU's concerns about personal data, TikTok has stored local users' data in Europe and restricted who can access this data. (Translator: Chang Cheng-Chien) 1150512
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(Central News Agency, Brussels 12th, comprehensive foreign wire report) German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer said today that Europe should follow the United States' example and have the operations of China's ByteDance-owned popular short-video platform TikTok in Europe "in European hands."
Agence France-Presse reported that because the US government threatened to ban TikTok's operations in the US, ByteDance has traded control of TikTok's local operations to a joint venture with a majority of American shareholders.
Weimer said to media reporters today in Brussels before meeting with cultural officials from other European Union (EU) member states: "I firmly believe that Europe should follow the US example, and I firmly believe that the ownership structure of this company must be discussed, which means we should put TikTok's European operations in European hands."
He pointed out that TikTok "collects data from European youth on an unimaginably large scale" and flows to "servers whose exact origin we do not know," and Europe cannot know where this data goes, and these are "the most private data of European youth."
To reduce the EU's concerns about personal data, TikTok has stored local users' data in Europe and restricted who can access this data. (Translator: Chang Cheng-Chien) 1150512
Choose to stand with facts, every sponsorship you make is a force to protect press freedom.
Download the Central News Agency 'First-hand News' APP to grasp the latest news instantly.
The text, images, and videos on this website may not be reproduced, publicly broadcast, or publicly transmitted and utilized without authorization.