Senators suspect that TikTok is dangerous to US national security

Two senators, Democrat Charles Schumer and Republican Tom Cotton, have asked US officials to make a research to see if TikTok, the Chinese social media application, is a threat to the national safety of the United States.

The two senators said one application with over 110 million downloads (on USA) could be a potential threat.

In a letter to officials, they said: "In light of these concerns, we urge the Information Community to conduct a risk assessment by TikTok and any other Chinese platform."

The TikTok application has over 1 billion monthly active users around the world, since January at 2019.

Chinese applications operate in accordance with some safety rules (laws) set by China. According to senators, there are many security experts who are concerned about these laws because there is a belief that the Chinese Companies they are obliged to cooperate with its Communist Party China.

Schumer and Cotton believe that TikTok may also have to comply with Chinese laws, such as those related to censorship. This means it can block specific content, such as political and other sensitive issues (eg recent Hong Kong protests).

Another concern of senators is that TikTok could be a potential target for hackers of foreign governments (eg for attacks such as those on elections US 2016).

For its part, the company behind TikTok said in a blog post that the application is based on transparency about its activities in the US and in all other countries.

Still, he said that all US user data is stored in the US, that centers data are outside China and that none of the data is subject to Chinese law.

“TikTok does not remove content based on what China wants. The Chinese government "He never asked us to remove content, but we would not do it even if he asked us to," the company said.

"We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government. "TikTok does not work in China, nor will it in the future."

On last week, the company behind TikTok has announced that it has hired specialists professionals to review the company's content policies. This was done as part of an effort to increase transparency.

The request for a TikTok inquiry was made because Senator Marco Rubio had said at the beginning of the month that the application was censored. content in the US, to comply with the laws and interests of the Chinese government.