Washington D.C.: A set of 25 US Congressmen and Congresswomen have written a letter to President Donald Trump, expressing concern over TikTok’s censorship of user content to advance the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) foreign policy aims, and advising to act decisively to protect the American people’s privacy and safety.
In the letter, they pointed out that India took the “extraordinary step” of banning several “Chinese affiliated mobile apps including TikTok due to national security concerns.”
“It is clear that the United States should not trust TikTok or any other Chinese-affiliated social media websites or apps o protect Americans’ data, privacy or security. As such, we urge you to take strong action to stop the CCP’s sophisticated espionage campaign against our country and protect our national security,” the letter read.
“These popular apps’ data collection practices, coupled with China’s onerous cybersecurity laws requiring all companies operating in China, including TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to share user data with CCP authorities, present a very real threat to U.S. national security. As such, we urge your administration to take decisive action to protect the American people’s privacy and safety,” they said in the letter.
