Amazon apparently sent its workers an email asking them to remove TikTok from their mobile devices. This was first reported by The New York Times, and several news sites have since posted about it as well. Later, Amazon changed its mind and said that the request had been sent in error.
Taylor Lorenz, a reporter for The New York Times Fashion and Style section, posted a tweet with a screenshot of the email that Amazon sent to its employees. The email was titled: “Action required: Mandatory removal of TikTok by 10-Jul”.
Hello,
Due to security risks, the TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email. If you have TikTok on your device, you must remove it by 10-Jul to retain mobile access to your Amazon email. At this time, using TikTok from your Amazon laptop browser is allowed.
According to The Verge, the email was obtained and independently published by multiple reporters on Twitter. Later, an Amazon spokesperson told The Verge: “This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error. There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.”
To me, this seems a little bit strange. Why would a company as big as Amazon write a very specifically worded email telling its employees that TikTok was no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email… only to walk that back after the email was posted on Twitter? Did someone at Amazon accidentally send that email earlier than planned? Or was Amazon unhappy that the email became public knowledge?
What we do know is that the U.S. Navy banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices because the app represented a “cybersecurity threat”. U.S. Army cadets were also asked not to use TikTok. Some members of Congress expressed that they think TikTok poses “national security risks”.
Amazon appears to have had enough of a security concern with TikTok to tell its employees to delete it. Later that same day, Amazon seems to have changed its mind about that. One cannot help but wonder what happened behind the scenes.