TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, should be removed from Apple Inc and Alphabet’s Google app stores because the short-video social media app poses a national security risk, said Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat in the Intelligence Committee, in a letter dated Thursday.
The app, which Congress has already banned from federal devices, has come under increasing criticism over fears the Chinese government could use it to collect data on Americans or advance Chinese interests.
“No company under the dictates of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) should have the power to collect such extensive data on the American people or to curate content for nearly a third of our population,” Bennet wrote in the letter alphabet Managing Director Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“Given these risks, I urge you to remove them Tick tock immediately from their respective app stores,” he wrote.
Prior to Bennet’s letter, Republicans have largely led the charge over TikTok and national security concerns, despite earlier Democratic Senator Dick Durbin urging Americans to stop using the app.
In the House of Representatives, now in Republican hands, the Foreign Affairs Committee plans to vote this month on a bill aimed at blocking use of TikTok in the United States, the committee confirmed.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump tried to block new users from downloading TikTok and ban other transactions that would have effectively prevented TikTok use in the United States, but the move was rejected by the courts.
For its part, the company says China’s government cannot access US citizens’ personal information or tamper with the app’s content.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to appear before the US House Energy and Trade Committee in March.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
