Skip to main content

Amazon says TikTok hasn’t been banned from workers’ phones

Amazon said Friday that an internal email sent earlier in the day that banned TikTok on workers’ devices was sent by mistake.

“This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to Digital Trends on Friday. “There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.”

The internal email — which surfaced on Twitter on Friday morning and was first reported by the New York Times — says employees must remove the app by July 10 in order to have continued access to their email accounts, citing “security risks” related to the TikTok app.

“Due to security risks, the TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email,” the email reads. “If you have TikTok on your device, you must remove it by [July 10] to retain mobile access to Amazon email.”

The email continued on to say that accessing TikTok from an internet browser on a desktop computer will still be allowed.

Amazon did not explain how the apparent email error occurred, or whether the company’s policy around TikTok would be changing in the near future.

This week was been fraught with scrutiny for the Chinese social media app. TikTok, which is owned by China-based startup Bytedance, has been increasingly viewed as a national security threat in the United States. Just this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his team, along with President Donald Trump, were looking into banning the app across the U.S. after reports that the app stores American user data.

The government has already banned it from several federal agencies ,including the Navy and Army, citing similar security concerns. The app, however, has an American CEO, former Walt Disney executive Kevin Mayer, and has been distancing itself from its Chinese roots as criticism mounts.

Editors' Recommendations

Meira Gebel
Meira Gebel is a freelance reporter based in Portland. She writes about tech, social media, and internet culture for Digital…
Clear Mode on TikTok: Here’s what it is and how to use it
The TikTok app on a smartphone's screen. The smartphone is sitting on a white table.

When it comes to its features, TikTok is most known for all the fun bells and whistles you can add to a video that you create for its short-form video-sharing platform.

But what about the app's video-watching features? Those might be lesser known to you (or just less noticeable) because they're part of a more passive way of experiencing TikTok. But despite how easily video-watching features can fly under the radar, there is one new TikTok feature, that's worth knowing about. It's called "Clear Mode."

Read more
TikTok is launching a dedicated gaming channel
Person's hand holding a smartphone with TikTok's logo on screen, all in front of a blurred background.

TikTok is moving further into the games industry by launching its own dedicated gaming channel.

According to a report from Financial Times, the channel will allow TikTok users to access games by pressing a tab on the ByteDance-owned social media platform's homepage. Four people familiar with the matter said that the channel will feature a variety of mobile games — some of which the company already developed — with ads and additional content that users can purchase.

Read more
Is TikTok leaking drafts? Let’s take a closer look at this rumor
The TikTok app on a smartphone's screen. The smartphone is sitting on a white table.

Not every social media post is ready for prime time. Sometimes you write a post or film a video and decide that it's better to not publish it. That's fine. That's what the Drafts folder is for. That folder is built to hold your works-in-progress, mistakes, and other too-goofy-for-public-consumption posts and videos. The Drafts folder is probably one that you take for granted, but what if that folder (via a particularly viral-prone social media platform) were to have its content leaked and published for the world to see? Scary, isn't it?

That's the fear that's behind a certain, now years-long TikTok rumor going around. But is it true? Is TikTok leaking its users' drafts? In this guide, we're taking a closer look at this rumor and fact-checking it.
The rumor
As far as we can tell, the whole "TikTok leaks drafts" rumor dates back to at least the summer of 2020. It's not a rumor that really made mainstream news headlines, but it did get some coverage with lesser-known websites, and it does have a tendency to resurface repeatedly. The last time it resurfaced was in August 2022. Here's what we know about it:

Read more