FCC's Carr Scheduling Meeting With TikTok; Senate GOP Seeks Ban

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's staff is scheduling a meeting with TikTok representatives after the popular Chinese social media app requested the appointment amid scrutiny over the company’s ties to Beijing. Carr said in an interview Thursday he remains focused on TikTok’s data practices and will push for the federal government to take action.

TikTok took exception to being called a Chinese social media app," saying TikTok is an "entertainment platform.” The leadership of TikTok, a company owned by Chinese parent ByteDance, "is based in Singapore and the United States,” the company said.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., told us former President Donald Trump was “right” about TikTok’s threat to national security. Senate Republicans said in interviews they want TikTok banned in the U.S. again. Trump blocked U.S. transactions with major Chinese apps while he was in office, but the Biden administration revoked the ban (see 2106090076).

Asked about potential for another ban, Warner said, “I’m not taking any of the remedies off the table.” He noted Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., favors a ban: “I still think there needs to be some process.”

“There are 150 million spying devices in America right now, collecting a massive trove of data that can be used to influence and shape public opinion ... not to mention the extraordinary commercial advantage,” Rubio told us.

For two years, TikTok has “talked openly about our work to limit access to user data across regions and keep U.S. user data secure,” the company said in a statement Friday. “It is unfortunate that BuzzFeed cherry-picked quotes from meetings about those very efforts and failed to provide adequate context. We look forward to meeting with members of Congress to correct the record on BuzzFeed's misleading reporting."

Carr asked Apple and Google last month to remove TikTok from their app stores (see 2206280064). He said TikTok asked for a meeting, and he’s still reviewing responses from Apple and Google. He said he’s not optimistic the tech companies will remove the app from their stores. “I thought I would start there," he said. If they won’t remove the app, he said, "then that just brings into sharper focus the need for the administration, the government, to take quick action.”

TikTok is potentially in the crosshairs of the FTC, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), and the Treasury and Commerce departments, Carr noted. Warner and Rubio requested an FTC investigation earlier this month (see 2207060003). TikTok’s response that American data isn’t stored in China doesn’t matter if Beijing has access, said Carr: “Their failure to just come clean and answer these questions absolutely just sets alarm bells off.”

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he supports an FTC probe: “It’s something we’ve got to look into. The people in the Chinese Communist Party will steal the hair off your head, and that’s been obvious for a long time. I wish the people in China were wonderful people, but their government, they’re a bunch of thieves, particularly when it comes to data and intellectual property.”

TikTok should be banned, and representatives should testify before Congress to explain discrepancies between the company’s previous testimony and the recently reported sharing of American data with the Chinese government, said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.: “Until there is a firewall between them and Beijing, they ought to be banned.”

“If there’s evidence that they’ve provided information to the Chinese government that they said they have not, then [an FTC investigation] would seem appropriate,” said Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rob Portman, R-Ohio. Warner said he wants to keep the dialogue going with Rubio about further committee action. Carr said Warner is the “guy to keep a close eye on,” given bipartisan potential and Warner’s access to national security briefings. TikTok may not think much of an FCC commissioner’s expertise on the issue, but Warner isn’t “a guy that you can just blow off and claim this is a partisan attack,” said Carr.