The Biden administration has threatened to ban TikTok in the US if Chinese owners do not divest their stakes in it.
The move is driven by fears that US user data held by the company could be passed on to China’s government.
The move represents a major shift in policy on the part of the administration, which has been under fire from some Republicans who say it hasn’t taken a tough enough stance to address the perceived security threat from TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd.
It also comes amid a global backlash to TikTok over concerns about the potential for Chinese spying, with countries including the UK, Canada and Australia recently moving to ban the app from government phones.
The US has already banned TikTok on federal government devices but this marks the first time under Biden’s administration that a potential nationwide ban on TikTok has been threatened.
In 2020, Donald Trump, had also tried to ban TikTok but was blocked by the courts, according to WSJ.
TikTok executives have said that 60% of ByteDance shares are owned by global investors, 20% by employees and 20% by its founders, though the founders’ shares carry outsize voting rights, as is common with tech companies.
A TikTok spokesperson, Brooke Oberwetter, told Reuters that the company had recently heard from the US Treasury-led committee on foreign investment in the United States (CFIUS), which demanded that the Chinese owners of the app sell their shares, and said otherwise they would face a possible US ban of the video app.
The move comes as TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, is due to appear before the US Congress next week.
TikTok said on Wednesday, March 15, that ‘the best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, US-based protection of US user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification’.
The video-sharing app made it known that a forced sale wouldn’t address the perceived security risk.
It has pledged to spend $1.5 billion on a program to safeguard U.S. user data and content from Chinese government access or influence.
‘If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,’ TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement.
Meanwhile, China has accused the US of spreading disinformation and suppressing TikTok.
