The FCC has requested that TikTok be taken out of Apple and Google's app stores. The organization that oversees almost all U.S. communications companies, including those that conduct business with foreign companies, expressed worries about China's data security.
Concerns about TikTok's data security have long occupied policymakers in the U.S. Former President Trump attempted to kill the app with two executive orders, but his administration ran out of time.
TikTok has been subjected to regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. due to its collection of personal data. Because of concerns that U.S. user data could be passed on to China's communist government, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which analyses agreements by foreign acquirers for possible safety risks, ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok in 2020.
To address this situation, TikTok announced earlier this month that it had transferred the information of its U.S. users to Oracle Corp. servers.
When Emily Baker-White of BuzzFeed News was given access to leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings, the China connection resurfaced in the media in a big way earlier this month. The audio contained multiple references by various employees stating that ByteDance employees based in China frequently accessed private data about U.S. users of TikTok
Brendan Carr, the FCC commissioner, stated in a letter to the CEOs dated June 24 and sent on FCC letterhead that the video-sharing app TikTok has amassed vast amounts of sensitive data about U.S. users that ByteDance staff in Beijing could access. TikTok's Chinese parent company is ByteDance.
Carr demanded that the businesses either take TikTok off of their app stores by July 8 or provide an explanation for their decision not to do so.
Given that the FCC lacks a clear legal authority over the content of app stores, Carr's request is uncommon. The FCC controls the national security environment often by granting specific communications licenses to businesses.
The timing of Carr's letter is crucial for the expansion of TikTok's business. According to an Insider Intelligence analysis published by Adweek, 51.2% of its expected ad income this year will come from the U.S.
With 94.1 million monthly users in 2022 and expected growth of 8.2 % this year, TikTok will be the third-largest social network in the U.S. The app is projected to outperform Twitter and Snapchat put together. By 2024, there will be over 100 million users in the U.S. market.
