An official of the USA’s Federal Communication Commission has called on the country to ban TikTok, describing it as a “sophisticated surveillance app.”
“At the end of the day, TikTok is China’s digital fentanyl,” FCC commissioner Brendan Carr said Friday in an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
“A lot of people look at TikTok and they think it’s just a fun application for sharing dance videos or other funny videos.
“But that’s just the sheep’s clothing. Underneath all of it, it operates as a very sophisticated surveillance app.
“Again, it’s not the videos, but it’s pulling everything from search and browsing history, potentially keystroke patterns, biometrics, including face prints and voice prints.”
While TikTok officials have insisted that none of this information makes its way to China, where TikTok is based, a bombshell NPR news story this summer alleged that, according to internal communication from the company, personal data of U.S. users is being seen by the Chinese government.
“That’s a big risk for four or five different reasons, including espionage and other activity. And, really, every week, there’s a new shoe that drops in this store.
“There’s another report that officials in ByteDance, the parent in Beijing, are attempting to surveil the location of specific Americans through this application,” Carr told host Dana Perino.
“I don’t see a path forward technically where we can assure ourselves that the data isn’t going to flow back to China and, similarly, that they’re not going to use the algorithm for foreign influence campaigns here,” he said.
