Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton recently sent a letter to US intelligence officials requesting an investigation of the security risk.
TikTok, possibly the first international social media platform to have such a huge following in the United States, is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech giant. The company, which now has offices in California, is trying to distance itself publicly from its counterparts in Beijing.
Senators Schumer and Cotton’s letter expressed concerns about whether the data TikTok collects on US users could potentially be shared with the Chinese Communist Party. They also questioned if TikTok censors content on its platform.
Earlier this month, Senator Marco Rubio said he was concerned that TikTok “is censoring content in line with China’s communist government directives.”
The company claims that the data on the US servers is stored in the United States, and that it isn’t subject to Chinese law.
Additional Resources
TikTok, Under Scrutiny, Distances Itself From China, Wired, October 25, 2019
Image credit: Shutterstock.com / XanderSt
