House China panel asks FTC to probe whether TikTok violated child privacy law
House China Committee asks the FTC to investigate if TikTok targeted children with pop-up messages as it lobbied to avoid a U.S. ban.
WASHINGTON — The leaders of a bipartisan congressional panel focused on China have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether TikTok violated laws intended to protect children in its lobbying effort against legislation that could ban the app in the U.S., according to a letter obtained exclusively by NBC News.
The new Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, John Moolenaar of Michigan, and the committee’s top Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, sent a letter Thursday asking FTC Chair Lina Khan to examine the pop-up messages TikTok sent to users in March as the House fast-tracked a bill to force TikTok’s Chinese-based owner, ByteDance, to divest or face a nationwide ban.
Specifically, the duo want to know whether TikTok violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which gives parents the ability to review and consent to what information websites and apps collect from children.
Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi write that TikTok “pushed intrusive and deceptive pop-up messages to a reportedly large number of users, including children, that requested personal information and prompted them to contact Congress in opposition” to the legislation.
As Congress worked to pass the legislation that could ban TikTok, the app fought back with pop-up messages to its users that read “Stop a TikTok shutdown” in big, white letters and urged them to call their representatives in Congress.
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