TikTok Is Once Again Under Threat From The US Government

(CTN News) – The Biden administration is now threatening to impose a ban on TikTok in the United States if its Chinese owners do not divest.

The US government is demanding TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their shares or face a ban of the social media platform. TikTok acknowledged this week that their stakes could be sold.

CFIUS issued the new directive after years of negotiations between TikTok and the government agency. With more lawmakers raising national security concerns about the app, Washington appears to have escalated its pressure.

Now that TikTok has expanded its reach over American culture, its future as an app seems less certain, but it was only a matter of time before this happened. American officials have expressed concern about the app’s possibility of being spied on by the Chinese government.

Some have raised concerns that the Chinese government might use the app to spread propaganda in the US. Essentially, both firms are concerned that they will ultimately fall under the laws of the Chinese Communist Party if they do business in China.

The other concerns raised involve social media platforms in general, not just TikTok specifically. You may feel déjà vu with the latest development because it echoes TikTok’s saga that began in 2020 in the United States, when the Trump administration threatened it with a ban if they didn’t sell themselves to a US-based company.

There were suggestions that Oracle and Walmart would buy the video sharing service, social media users were in a frenzy, and TikTok began a long legal dispute with the US.

Therefore, critics have decried Trump’s crusade against the app as political theater grounded in xenophobia, highlighting his unusual suggestion that the United States should yield a cut of any deal if it forces the app’s sale.

It eventually repealed the Trump administration’s executive order targeting in favor of a new one focused on technology related to foreign adversaries, such as China.

A report last year suggested US users’ data was repeatedly accessed by employees in China through parent company, Byte-Dance.

The report is disputed by TikTok. Early this month, Tik-Tok CEO Shou Chew doubled down on the company’s previous commitments to address lawmakers’ concerns. It’s never been asked for by the Chinese government to get US user data, Chew said.

And we’ve said that we won’t give them it even if they ask us for it. All U.S. user data is stored in Oracle Cloud infrastructure, according to Chew, and U.S. personnel control how that data gets accessed.

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