Republican senators push TikTok for answers on data privacy
Republicans are once again angling to take on TikTok.
Republicans are once again angling to take on TikTok.
Fourteen GOP senators and a Republican commissioner from the Federal Communications Commission have in recent days issued various letters calling for answers from the video app, arguing it represents a national security threat.
The missives come after a recent investigation published by BuzzFeed News in which the outlet said audio recordings showed that China-based employees were able to access U.S. user data. NBC News has not independently verified that reporting. TikTok responded to BuzzFeed News, saying it hopes to “remove any doubt about the security of US user data.”
Last Thursday, about a week after BuzzFeed News released its report, Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., led a group with four other Republican senators in writing a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen inquiring about “the Biden Administration’s delayed response to the national security and privacy risks posed by TikTok.”
On Monday, nine other Republican senators, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in response to the BuzzFeed News article demanding answers to a series of questions about the company’s data practices.
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