TikTok is going through one more name from a outstanding lawmaker for the app’s ban, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, despatched to Apple and Google urging the businesses to ban TikTok from their respective app shops.
Within the letter, Bennet says that “TikTok, in its present kind, [is] an unacceptable menace to the nationwide safety of america.” The letter, addressed to Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, repeats lots of the identical factors which were raised by different lawmakers in search of to ban the app.
Particularly, Bennet raises the likelihood that TikTok’s guardian firm, ByteDance, could possibly be compelled to “use its affect to advance Chinese language authorities pursuits,” by way of TikTok. “Like most social media platforms, TikTok collects huge and complex knowledge from its customers, together with faceprints and voiceprints,” Bennet writes. “In contrast to most social media platforms, TikTok poses a singular concern as a result of Chinese language regulation obligates ByteDance, its Beijing-based guardian firm, to ‘assist, help, and cooperate with state intelligence work.’”
TikTok has lengthy denied that such eventualities might play out, and has tried its ties to China. In an announcement the corporate mentioned Bennet’s letter “depends virtually solely on deceptive reporting about TikTok, the information we accumulate, and our knowledge safety controls.”
Apple and Google didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Whereas it appears unlikely both firm would take such a drastic step primarily based on a letter from one senator, it highlights the mounting stress and scrutiny on TkTok. The corporate has spent the final two years negotiating with the Committee on International Funding in america (CFIUS) with the intention to safe its potential to proceed to function within the US. However that course of is reportedly stalled, and the corporate has been waging a brand new in an try and win over critics.
TikTok has additionally been sharing extra round its partnership to safeguard US consumer knowledge and adjust to US regulators’ issues. However lawmakers appear to be in no rush to let TikTok off the hook. The app has already been banned from federal units, and quite a few state governments have handed bans of their very own. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled at his first Congressional listening to subsequent month,
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