Although millions of Americans use the popular social media app TikTok every day, it appears that FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wants the application banned. Specifically, he has called for the United States government to ban TikTok over security concerns regarding its ties to China. He believes that this is the only way to prevent Beijing from improperly accessing the data of millions of American users.
As noted via CNN Business, Carr has “little confidence there’s a path forward,” regarding the way TikTok has handled US user data. In fact, he fears that there is no way “to cut a technical construct that they’re not going to find a way around.” Here’s what he specifically had to say on that front:
“Perhaps the deal CFIUS ends up cutting is an amazing, airtight deal, but at this point I have a very, very difficult time looking at TikTok’s conduct thinking we’re going to cut a technical construct that they’re not going to find a way around.”
When speaking about CFIUS, he’s referring to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. They’re described as “a multi-agency government body charged with reviewing business deals involving foreign ownership.” As such, they’re the ones that have been spending “months negotiating with TikTok on a proposal to resolve concerns that Chinese government authorities could seek to gain access to the data TikTok holds on US citizens.” And, while TikTok has migrated US user data to servers run by Oracle, there are still concerns that “China-based employees of TikTok or its parent, ByteDance, will still be able to access that information.” Indeed, TikTok has already “declined to commit to cutting off data flows to China” after facing pressure from US lawmakers in September.
A TikTok spokesperson gave the following statement on the matter:
“Commissioner Carr has no role in or direct knowledge of the confidential discussions with the US government related to TikTok and is not in a position to discuss what those negotiations entail,” they stated. “We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the US government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns.”
With that in mind, Brendan Carr has only a limited capacity to regulate TikTok. Specifically, “CFIUS, the Commerce Department or the Federal Trade Commission may have greater legal authority over the company.” As such, we’ll have to see how the situation develops with those parties. For now, however, “the FCC has taken numerous steps to block or ban Chinese-affiliated telecom companies from selling equipment or services in the United States,” namely because of “allegations that those companies could also be compelled to give up the data they hold on US communications to the Chinese government.”
Brendan Carr concluded his thoughts with the following statement:
“For me, this is taking what I’ve learned in the Huawei, ZTE, China Mobile context, where we’re looking at possibly nefarious data flows, and bringing it to bear in terms of this issue,” Carr finished.
As such, we’ll have to wait and see what the future holds for TikTok and whether or not the popular app could receive a ban from the United States. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for additional updates as we have them.