Brendan Carr does not deviate. A vocal critic of TikTok, the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US telecommunications regulatory agency, is calling for the platform to be banned in the United States. “There is no other solution to prevent the data of American users from falling into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”he explains to Axios.
The FCC commissioner has no power to ban TikTok. But his concerns add to the pressure on the Chinese social network to hold full talks with the Biden administration. US President Joe Biden has asked the US Department of Commerce to submit recommendations to protect citizens’ data “external opponents”.. TikTok is actually owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
Meanwhile, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews business deals with non-US companies, is conducting a security review of TikTok and negotiating with the company.
According to the New York Times, the deal is close. It provides that user data will be located exclusively in the United States. If the text is accepted, the data could still be accessed by ByteDance’s Chinese teams. However, information deemed sensitive will be reviewed exclusively by US employees.
Brendan Carr’s comments come a week before the midterm elections. Unlike his predecessor Donald Trump, Joe Biden wants to be more moderate about TikTok. The new Congress could take stronger action to ban or restrict the app.
Longstanding accusations
This is not the first time US government officials have campaigned to ban the platform. The company has repeatedly been accused of mass collecting user data that could theoretically be accessed by the Chinese government.
In June, BuzzFeed News revealed that ByteDance employees had repeatedly accessed the non-public data of several American users of the social network. In a blog post published on November 2, the company also acknowledged that European users’ data could:where demonstrated necessary, through a set of robust approval protocols and methods recognized under the GDPRmust be reviewed by staff in China.
A spokesperson for TikTok tried to reassure various US elected officials, arguing that “ TikTok has never shared US user data with the Chinese government and will not share it if asked. “Without success. Brendan Carr is sticking to his guns. “Once the Chinese Communist Party receives this information, there are all kinds of espionage and blackmail operations it can engage in.”an FCC commissioner said earlier this week.
If the ban goes into effect, more than 94 million users will be affected according to Statista. The United States will join India as the only country to ban TikTok outright.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.