US lawmakers has warned that TikTok, the viral short video app owned by a Chinese company, pose a risk to the country's national security.
Aside from labeling TikTok as a national security risk, US lawmakers are urging regulators and intelligence agencies to investigate the app's ties to China.
Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton have released a statement calling on the US intelligence community to examine the national security risk associated with TikTok and other Chinese-owned platforms. They argued that such apps could be utilized to spy on US citizens or become targets of foreign influence campaigns such as the Russian meddling campaign during the 2016 US presidential election.
Beijing-based Bytedance is the parent company of TikTok, which surged in popularity and became one of the few Chinese-owned social media apps to be embraced in Western countries. Mobile data firm Sensor Tower reported that the app has been downloaded 177 million times last quarter, which actually declined by 4% compared with the same period in 2018.
However, TikTok remains to be the second most downloaded app globally, just behind Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp. Sensor Tower says that the app made a revenue of $40 million on the iOS App store during the quarter and garnered 100 million US users.
In their letter to the acting US Director of National Intelligence, the senators argued that since TikTok's parent company is based in China, it could be forced "to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party" and that "there is no legal mechanism for Chinese companies to appeal if they disagree with a request."
However, Bytedance pointed out: "Our data centers are located entirely outside of China, and none of our data is subject to Chinese law. Further, we have a dedicated technical team focused on adhering to robust cybersecurity policies, and data privacy and security practices."
