One of the leaders of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, urged the Council on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) to take measures to ban the social network TikTok in the U.S. Carr fears that the Chinese company jeopardizes national security: "I don't think there is a way forward for anything other than a ban."
Carr, one of five FCC commissioners, told Axios that the platform and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, raise strong concerns regarding the handling of U.S. users' data because of their close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. He claims there isn't "a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party]."
TikTok opposes ban
TikTok rejected Carr's comments. According to an anonymous spokesperson for the social network: "Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner."
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government under the direct oversight of Congress.
TikTok is currently negotiating with CFIUS to decide whether the video platform can be sold from ByteDance to a U.S. company to operate in the country:
We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the U.S. Government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns.
"Trump was right"
The Trump Administration unsuccessfully attempted to ban the application in 2020. He then ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. company, but ultimately no sale was made.
Progressive circles criticized the former president's actions at the time. However, Democrats have had a change of heart. Democratic Senator Mark Warner noted:
This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago. If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok … the ability for China to have undue influence is a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict.
