Western countries, at least the ones I've lived in, don't often out-right ban software. It's unpopular and likely to garner scrutiny from both the press and constituents, but largely, it's a political grenade — you have to constantly fight the software suppliers each release; it's a signal to businesses that the government is not going to protect your commercial interests; and philosophically it's just over-reach.

Banning TikTok is akin to "banning all apps from a country" and the obvious response will be that country will ban your apps in return... and businesses operating in those countries may be quite unhappy to find their market evaporate.

They havent banned the homegrown brainwashing apps - why start now?

Well how will western countries do their global psy-ops actions on the younger generation late teens early 20s. Most definitely not on facebook and twitter :p

They just hate it that they can't use excessive censorship like they do on western made social media platforms. Only leverage western countries has at the moment is using/abusing ads revenue and IP laws.

>Surprised TikTok hasn’t been banned in western countries yet.

Other than the GFoC (Great Firewall of China) scenario, how would they be banned? Maybe dropping all route broadcasts that contain TikTok's range[s]?

Even if were possible to ban them, you have the more likely scenario that they drop an endpoint on the dark web to get around that (see: Facebook[0]) and you're back at square one.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_onion_address

Have you heard of Youtube shorts? Same dumb/disturbing content, doesn't need login, comes pre-installed in every device

My nephews just grab any device and start scrolling

I'm more interested in having an option to remove all tiktok-like short video suggestions from Facebook, Youtube and Instagram apps. It's easy in the browser but not on my phone.

They paid/bribed the US to not be banned in the form of a hugely overpriced services deal to Oracle.