Senators Urge TikTok Restrictions in U.S., Citing National Security – Billboard

Two other senators are calling for restrictions on TikTok’s operations in the US, citing alleged risks to national security and consumer privacy posed by the Chinese platform.

In the letter, sent Thursday, US Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) urged the United States Committee on Foreign Investments (CFIUS), which is currently investigating TikTok’s 2017 merger with Musical.ly, to “quickly complete its investigation and impose severe structural restrictions” between the platform and to impose its platform The Chinese parent company ByteDance – also through the “potential separation” of the two companies. The letter was addressed to the US Treasury Secretary and CFIUS chair Janet Yellen.

In the letter, Blumenthal and Moran cite a December disclosure by ByteDance — reported by The New York Times – That four of its employees obtained the data of several TikTok users, including two journalists, in order to locate the sources of alleged leaks to journalists of internal company talks and documents.

Despite ByteDance’s claim that it fired the employees involved, Blumenthal and Moran claim that the program was in fact conducted by a “formal ‘internal audit and risk control’ team” made up of senior staff including TikTok’s CEO. was directed Shou Zi Chew.

“The incident also occurred while TikTok executives had repeatedly promised that Americans’ personal information would be safe from such espionage,” the letter reads, citing testimony from TikTok’s VP/Head of Public Policy. Michael Beckermanto the Senate Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Consumer Protection in October 2021.

The letter goes on to say that TikTok’s engineers “continue to have dangerous access to Americans’ personal data and control over its algorithmic recommendation systems, access that continues to enable this spying on journalists.”

The senators cite several other reports to support their case, including a December article in The Wall Street Journal reports that TikTok’s product development and management – including oversight of the algorithmic recommendation system – remains based in China. Another article published by forbes in August, which reported that around 300 current employees at TikTok and ByteDance work or have worked for Chinese propaganda outlets such as Xinhua News Agency and China Global Television, is also cited as evidence supporting restrictions.

Elsewhere, Blumenthal and Moran cite an October study consumer reports which found that TikTok tracks Americans — including those who don’t use the platform — by embedding “a tracking technology” on partner websites. “While these tracking efforts are ostensibly a promotional effort by the company, the transmission of non-user IP addresses, a unique ID number, and information about what an individual is doing on a website provides TikTok with a deep understanding of that individual’s interests, conduct and other sensitive matters,” the letter adds.

Despite TikTok’s assurances that it will no longer censor videos that criticize the Chinese government and other authoritarian regimes, the senators also claim that the platform “continues to opaquely downgrade or remove certain content, including the suspension of LGBTQ accounts.”

TikTok “clearly and inseparably depends on ByteDance for its operations,” the letter concludes, “and is therefore indebted to the Chinese government.”

Thursday’s letter is just the latest in a string of recent condemnations of TikTok by US lawmakers. In December, President Joe Biden signed into law banning nearly 4 million government employees from using the platform on devices owned by its agencies, joining at least 27 state governments and several universities in passing similar measures. That same month, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Flor.), Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and MP Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) introduced a bill that would effectively ban TikTok and any other China-based social media platform from operating in the United States. And earlier this month Senator Michael Bennett (D-Col.), urged Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over national security concerns, and claimed the Chinese Communist Party could “weaponize” the platform against the United States by forcing ByteDance to ” to release Americans’ sensitive information or manipulate the content Americans receive to further China’s interests.”

Those lawmakers apparently were not reassured by TikTok’s announcement in June that it had started forwarding US user data to US-based Oracle cloud servers, initiated audits of its algorithms, and set up a new division dedicated solely to US user data for managed the platform.

Concerns about TikTok are widespread in other parts of the West, especially in Europe. In January, Zi Chew met with European Union officials over child safety and privacy concerns, among other concerns. On Friday, TikTok’s general manager of operations in Europe said, Rich Waterworth, tried to allay some of those concerns in a blog post, noting that the company plans to build two additional European data centers and pledged to “keep our European community and its data safe and secure.” He added that the company “continues to deliver” on a data governance strategy they laid out for Europe last year. It includes plans to further reduce employee access to European data, minimize data flows outside of Europe, and store European user data locally.

Zi Chew is scheduled to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, where he is expected to comment on TikTok’s data security and privacy policies, the app’s impact on children, and ties with the Chinese Communist Party.