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Amazon Says Email to Employees Banning TikTok Was a Mistake

Associated Press

   Roughly five hours after an internal email went out to employees
   telling them to delete the popular video appTikTokfrom their phones,
   Amazon appeared to backtrack, calling the ban a mistake.

   "This morning's email to some of our employees was sent in error. There
   is no change to our policies right nowwith regard toTikTok," Amazon
   emailed reporters just before 5 p.m. Eastern time. Spokeswoman Jaci
   Anderson declined to answer questions about what happened.

   The initial internal email, which was disseminated widely online, told
   employees to deleteTikTok, a video app increasingly popular with young
   people but also the focus of intensifying national-security and
   geopolitical concerns because of its Chinese ownership. The email cited
   "security risks" of the app.

   An Amazon employee who confirmed receipt of the initial email but was
   not authorized to speak publicly had not seen a retraction at the time
   of Amazon's backtrack.

   Amazon is the second-largest U.S. private employer after Walmart, with
   more than 840,000 employees worldwide, and moving againstTikTokwould
   have escalated pressure on the app. It is banned on employee phones by
   the U.S. military and the company is subject to a national-security
   review of its merger history. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said
   this week that the government was "certainly looking" at banning the
   app.

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