San Francisco, United States.- TikTok confirmed to AFP that the US government recommended that the application separate from its owner, the Chinese group ByteDance, so as not to be banned in the United States, while pressure against the popular platform increases.
“If the objective is to protect national security, calling for a ban or alienation is unnecessary, since neither option solves the problems of the data access and transfer industry,” reacted a TikTok spokesperson contacted by the AFP.
“We remain confident that the best path to address national security concerns is to protect US-based user data and systems, with robust monitoring, investigation, and third-party verification.”
According to an article published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and other media, the White House issued an ultimatum: if TikTok remains owned by ByteDance, it will be banned in the United States.
The platform is perceived as a danger to national security by several congressmen as it belongs to a Chinese business group.
The February downing by the United States of a Chinese balloon, accused of being a spy device, revived parliamentary efforts to veto the application, accused of giving Beijing access to the data of users around the world, which which TikTok denies.
The White House request comes from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government agency in charge of assessing the risks of all foreign investment for national security.
The government and Treasury declined to comment.
TikTok, which has gone to great lengths to reassure politicians and the public about its integrity, and was counting on the federal agency CFIUS to find a compromise.
“The quickest and most effective way to address these concerns…is for CFIUS to adopt the proposed agreement that we’ve been working with them on for close to two years,” an enforcement spokesperson said in late February. .
The spokesperson was reacting with this to the discussion of a Republican bill that would give President Joe Biden the authority to completely veto TikTok.
The White House has already prohibited officials from federal agencies from having the application on their devices, through a law ratified in early January.
The European Commission and the Government of Canada recently made similar decisions for the mobile phones of their officials.
The app has surpassed YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook in “time spent” by American adults on each of these platforms in recent years and is hot on the heels of Netflix, according to Insider Intelligence.
