Cabinet minister Grant Shapps has vowed to keep using TikTok on his personal phone, despite pleas for government ministers to exit the platform entirely.
His Tory cabinet colleague Oliver Dowden has announced that TikTok banned from all government devices after a security review.
But Mr Shapps posted a clip from the Wolf Of Wall Street in which Leonardo DiCaprio – playing a Wall Street banker – declares he is “not f***ing leaving”.
The energy secretary clarified that he was would only use the under-fire, Chinese-owned social media app on personal devices – calling the government phone ban “sensible”.
Mr Shapps, who has 14,400 followers, wrote: “This morning the government announced a TikTok ban on government devices. That’s sensible. I’ve never used TikTok on government devices and can hereby confirm I will NOT be leaving TikTok anytime soon!”
But MPs pressed for the ban to cover such devices. Former minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Commons: “Private phones are used for communications.”
Sir Iain said: “And I honestly don’t believe that whatever the complaints are, that the reality is that these private phones will never be used for government business. They will be, they are, and there is no way of stopping that to some degree.”
The ex-Tory leader added: “Can he not now say any government minister or senior official that has their private phone with TikTok in it should remove it, because that gets rid of the risk that it will have?”
Labour MP Andrew Western agreed with Sir Iain – adding the changes “should go further” and include personal devices used by ministers.
He asked Mr Dowden: “Could he tell us if the secretary of state for energy security and net zero will be leading by example and doing us all a favour and delete his TikTok account?”
Mr Dowden, laughing, replied: “Perhaps that secretary of state is more au fait with social media than I am. I am totally confident [Mr Shapps] will be adhering to the guidance he will receive as a minister.”
A spokeswoman for Mr Shapps said in a statement: “Grant has never used TikTok on government devices and believes security measures – like not sharing location permission – are sensible.
“However, he is concerned that representatives of the people who deliberately choose not to engage with the public on the platforms that they actually use are unlikely to continue to represent these voters for long.”
Rishi Sunak had been under pressure from senior MPs to follow the US and the European Union in barring the video-sharing app from official devices.
TikTok, owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance, said it was “disappointed” with the decision and said bans were based on “fundamental misconceptions and driven by wider geopolitics”.
Mr Dowden announced the “precautionary move” – which is not being extended to members of the public – with “immediate effect”.
He said it was a prudent and proportionate step following “advice from our cyber security experts” as he noted risks around how sensitive information can be accessed by TikTok.
