Ottawa still advertising on TikTok despite banning it on government devices due to security concerns
CBC
The federal government continues to advertise on TikTok, despite having banned the China-linked app from all government devices late last month due to security concerns.
Ottawa told CBC News it's running several taxpayer-funded ad campaigns on TikTok, a video-sharing service popular with young people.
The ads promote government messaging on topics such as public safety, armed forces recruitment and online disinformation, said the Privy Council Office last week.
The advertising campaigns pose no security concerns for the government because a third party ad agency posts them on TikTok, said Privy Council spokesperson Stéphane Shank in an email.
But some tech experts argue Ottawa is sending Canadians a contradictory message and should suspend all advertising on the app.
"It seems a little bit like a double standard to me to say, 'Well, it's it's too dangerous for any of our employees to have, but it's okay for reaching teenagers,'" said Brett Caraway, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology.
At a news conference last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he suspects that, following Ottawa's device ban, many Canadians will reflect on using TikTok "and perhaps make choices in consequence."
However, Ottawa's ongoing ad campaigns look like "an implicit endorsement" of the app, said Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University's Master of Public Policy in Digital Society Program.
"I don't think it's the right use of tax dollars if we are in fact so newly serious and cautious about this one app," she said. "You sort of have to pick a lane."
Spokesperson Shank said it's up to Canadians to decide whether they want to use TikTok.
The government did not provide the cost of this year's TikTok campaigns. Last year, it spent $1.7 million advertising on the platform. That's more than the $1.6 million Ottawa spent advertising on LinkedIn last year, but far from the $11.4 million it spent on Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns.
Like other social media apps, TikTok collects users' personal information and monitors their use of the service.
However, it has received additional scrutiny because the platform's parent company, Bytedance, is based in Beijing, and Chinese laws allow the government to demand access to companies' user information.
TikTok says it does not operate in China and does not believe the country's laws apply to the platform.
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