TikTok “It’s not just another video app. That’s the sheep costume, ”under which the FCC commissioner Brendan Carr he thinks a wolf is hiding, bringing the American data to Beijing. The executive of the American body that controls communications at the federal level asks Google and Apple to remove the app from the stores. It is possible that gThe United States wants to ban TikTokagain?
Does the US want to ban TikTok?
The Federal Communication Commision (FCC) it is the American commission, founded by Roosevelt, which monitors radio, television and newspapers broadcasts. And more recently also social networks. One of its commissioners, Republican Brendan Carr, sent a letter to Google and Apple. In which he asks to ban TikTok from American soil.
In a tweet in which he publishes a copy of the letter sent to two giants of Silicon Valley, Carr accuses TikTok of bringing US user data to Beijing. The reference is to a recent report from BuzzFeed News, which examines the audio of 80 internal TikTok meetings, recently leaked online. BuzzeFeed reports that Chinese employees of ByteDancewhich is based in China, have repeatedly accessed data collected in the United States.
According to the report, one of the members of TikTok’s Trust and Security division reported in September 2021 that “everything is seen in China “. And a director of that department at another meeting referred to a “Master Admin“ that would have “Access to everything”.
The ‘sovereignty’ of the data and the doubts of the FCC
A few hours before the BuzzFeed News report was released. TikTok announced that it would migrate 100% of its data traffic to an Oracle Cloud infrastructure in the United States. Something that also comes on the push of several federal authorities (including the FCC) who would have expressed doubts about how TikTok manages data.
But it appears that Carr is more concerned than his colleagues, being the only signer of the letter. In which he speaks of “Worrying evidence regarding TikTok’s data practices“. Among these, he cites the fact that it would appear that the app can circumvent the privacy measures of Android and iOS, as reported in two studies released last February. The commissioner also pointed out that already in 2021 TikTok paid 92 million dollars to close out of the court of allegations of improper data collectiona.
Can the US Really Ban TikTok?
In his letter, Carr gives time to Apple and Google until July 8 to remove TikTok from stores, or to explain why they don’t intend to. But the fact that he signed the letter himself suggests that the rest of the FCC disagrees with this course of action. It is currently difficult to assess the legality of this letter.
Pending greater clarity from the FCC and the two American companies, the specters of a possible ban on TikTok are raised. Something that the last Republican administration had prosecuted for several months, even without getting to do it.
The privacy issue remains at the center of the technological dialogue, but such drastic interventions are unlikely to have immediate effects. At the moment, therefore, it does not seem likely that the United States will really be able to ban TikTok. However, there is a risk that a new “TikTok ban” case will open, with unpredictable consequences. We will keep you posted.