The FBI is concerned that the Chinese moderators of the popular social network may be able to control the recommendation algorithms, manipulate the content and use it for influence operations. In addition, there have been renewed fears that China could use the app to collect user data and for espionage operations.

Angry TikTok

All this is in the hands of a government that does not share our values ​​and has a mission very different from those of the United States. should concern us
said FBI Director Chris Wray.

It is not the first time that such rhetoric about the Chinese practice is heard. The same Ray had expressed himself in a similar way in his speech to Congress last month. Dialogue about TikTok has been going on since the presidency of Donald Trump, who threatened to ban the app completely in the US in 2020 and pressured ByteDance developers to sell TikTok to the American company.

The short video service itself has always stated that it does not share any data of Americans with Chinese authorities. The application is owned by a private company in Beijing, but in the USA the service is subject to US law, the local company “TikTok Inc.” is offered by At a Senate hearing in September, Vanessa Pappas, TikTok’s chief operating officer, questioned the bipartisanship that the company protects all US user data and Chinese government officials do not have access to it.

Officials are now negotiating a possible deal with a Chinese company that would address security concerns. According to Ray, this process is happening in all US government agencies. It is not known at what stage the parties are at the moment.