U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo believes that TikTok should be banned in the country. A few Senators have agreed to this proposition, including Marco Rubio and Chuck Schumer, who both want the matter investigated. Last week, India placed a ban on the popular app.
Pompeo, on Monday, said that the U.S. is considering banning apps made in China, including TikTok, which had been accused of sharing user data with the Chinese government.
TikTok has stated previously that the app has storage facilities based in the U.S. and Singapore, but it's not clear if all TikTok users Stateside have their data stored there. The company is adamant about placating India, which has banned the app along with more than 50 other Chinese apps. It said that it could store the data of Indian users on a server located in the country, something that the company said it would do in 2019, but has not delivered on.
"I don't want to get out in front of the President, but it's something we're looking at," Pompeo told Fox News.
U.S. Senators have raised national security red flags over how TikTok handles user data. Over the last few years, American lawmakers have grown increasingly worried over Tiktok's parent company ByteDance and its relationship with the Chinese government. The company could be pressured into handing over data or other intelligence to the Chinese Communist Party, according to lawmakers.
TikTok users were reportedly the culprit behind President Donald Trump's empty rally in Tulsa. Reports stated that users had purchased tickets for the rally but did not plan on using it. The result? Trump's rally ended up becoming half empty. It's not clear whether this incident drove the Trump administration to consider the ban.
On Monday, Reuters reported that TikTok would be withdrawing from its offices in Hong Kong following China's establishment of a new national security law for the city.
As for India, the move to ban TikTok arrives at a time amid a border dispute between China, which has resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers. The clash is being pointed out as the reason why Chinese tech imports have been withdrawn from the country, with many small businesses boycotting products and services from China.
Senior officials from both India and China have since discussed the deal to disengage from their clash in the Himalayas, but military sources said the current arrangement was temporary.
