Sundsvall, Sweden—

A short video of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-day trip to China this week has become popular among posts on the Chinese social media platform TikTok, where the European Union, Canada, Taiwan and the United States are present prohibit This situation appeared on official devices over a year ago due to security concerns.

A video showing highlights from Scholz’s trip had been viewed 1.5 million times as of Friday, while another video of him talking about it on a plane ride home had 1.4 million views.

Scholz opened his TikTok account on April 8 to appeal to young people and promised not to post videos of himself dancing. His most popular post to date is about his briefcase from 40 years ago, with 3.6 million views. Many people commented: “This briefcase is older than me.”

Scholz is one of several Western leaders to use TikTok despite concerns that parent company ByteDance may provide private user data to the Chinese government and could be used to push a pro-Beijing agenda.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has 258,000 followers on TikTok, and Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris has 99,000 followers.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign opened a TikTok account in February, even as Biden himself vowed to sign legislation expected to be voted on as early as Saturday to force ByteDance to divest in the U.S. or face a ban.

Former US President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020, but failed. In March, he changed his stance and now appears to oppose the ban.

Despite reports that ByteDance may be at risk, ByteDance has denied providing user data to the Chinese government, and China firmly opposes any forced sales.

Kevin Morgan, TikTok’s director of security and integrity for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that more than 134 million people in 27 EU countries visit TikTok every month, including one-third of EU parliamentarians.

As EU elections approach in June, more and more European politicians are taking advantage of popular platforms favored by young people to attract votes.

Ola Patrik Bertil Moeller, a Swedish Social Democratic lawmaker with 124,000 followers on TikTok, told VOA: “We as politicians engage in dialogue, spread accurate images and answer people’s questions. Problem. If we are not there, other forces with bad intentions will certainly be there.”

But other European politicians see TikTok as risky.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said on Monday he was troubled by social media platforms including TikTok “which are used by various threat actors for a variety of purposes, such as recruiting for espionage.” , exerting influence through disinformation and fake news, or mapping regime critics.” “

Konstantin von Notz, deputy chairman of the Green Parliamentary Group in the German legislature, told VOA: “While security and personal data protection issues often arise when using social networks, this issue is even more important for TikTok users, Because the company is close to the Chinese government.”

Matthias C. Kettemann, an Internet researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research in Hamburg, Germany, told VOA: “Securing data is a difficult task; considering TikTok’s relationship with China relationship, it doesn’t make it any easier,” but he emphasized that “TikTok is obliged to take these measures through the EU’s GDPR. [General Data Protection Regulation] Anyway, from a legal perspective. “

But analysts question whether ByteDance will comply with European law if it comes under pressure from the Chinese government.

Matthias Spielkamp, ​​executive director of AlgorithmWatch, told VOA: “Does TikTok have an incentive to comply with European law? Yes, there is huge money involved. TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, can refuse the request , is this realistic? ” Almost no one knows how this will play out?

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.