Raphaël Glucksmann no longer wants to hear about TikTok. The head of the PS-Place publique list in the European elections said Tuesday on France 2 that he had left the social network, refusing to “play the role” while denouncing foreign interference.
The one who chaired a commission on foreign interference in Europe, particularly from Russia and China, left this social network whose parent company is Chinese and on which he had 80,000 subscribers.
An application criticized by many countries
“It’s a question of consistency. This social network is a (money) pump to give to the service of the Chinese Communist Party. So I didn’t see myself acting like a joke on TikTok while denouncing foreign interference,” he explained.
The short video platform, very popular with young people, is accused by its detractors of giving the Chinese authorities access to user data from around the world, which the application strongly denies. The United States, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom have banned the app on government devices.
Raphaël Glucksmann also estimated that “yes, there will be interference” from foreigners during the European election campaign, and they “will favor those who serve Putin’s political interests, that is to say the European extreme right”. It will be “not necessarily the day of the vote”, but with “the rise of polarizing subjects in an artificial way, aimed at favoring the extremes”, he warned, recalling that “the company of Vladimir Putin”, leader of the Kremlin, was “the destabilization of our democracies”.