Two senators, Democrat Charles Schumer and Republican Tom Cotton, have asked US officials to conduct an investigation to determine whether TikTok, the Chinese social media app, poses a risk to security US
The two senators said that an app with over 110 million downloads (in the US) could be a potential threat.
In a letter sent to the authorities, they said: “Given these concerns, we ask the Intelligence Community to conduct an assessment of the risks posed by TikTok and any other Chinese platform.”.
The TikTok app has over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, as of January 2019.
Chinese apps operate under certain rules and laws (regarding security) that China has set. According to the senators, there are many security experts who are concerned about these laws, because there is a belief that Chinese companies are obliged to cooperate with the Communist Party of China.
Schumer and Cotton believe that TikTok may also be forced to follow Chinese laws, such as those related to censorship. This means it may block certain content, such as political and other sensitive topics (e.g., recent Hong Kong protests).
Another concern of the senators is that TikTok could be a potential target for hackers foreign government (e.g. for attacks, such as those carried out in the 2016 US elections )
For its part, the company behind TikTok said in a blog post that the app relies on transparency for its activities in the US and all other countries.
He also said that all data of American users is stored in the US, that data are located outside of China, and that none of the data is subject to Chinese law.
“TikTok does not remove content based on what China wants. The Chinese government has never asked us to remove content, but we wouldn’t do it even if they asked us to,” the company said.
"We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government. TikTok does not operate in China, and will not operate in the future.".
Last week, the company behind TikTok announced that it had hired experts to review the company's content policies as part of an effort to increase transparency.
The request for an investigation into TikTok came after Senator Marco Rubio said earlier this month that the app censors content in the US to comply with Chinese government laws and interests.
