Remember Musical.ly? It turned into TikTok. Soon, there’s a good chance people could be saying something similar. “Remember TikTok?”
Brendan Carr is one of the five commissioners at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), and he makes it sound like they are moving towards an all-out ban on the popular social media app.
“I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban.”
A report in Axios says that with over 200 million downloads of TikTok just in the United States, the fact that a parent company in China owns the company makes TikTok a national security concern.
So, if you are wondering if the FCC can institute a ban, the answer is that it can not. But they are influential, and after Carr and his colleagues railed on Chinese telecom companies, the U.S Government heard it loud and clear and acted on it.
Currently, TikTok is exploring options of possibly being divested by ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, and transferring ownership to an American company.
A story in the New York Times recently reported that the option was moving forward, but the Justice Department feared China would still be involved.
The reason for all the concern about China is simple; the incredible amount of data they have access to through TikTok.
In June, Carr requested that Apple and Google take TikTok off their app stores. No luck there.
As for how influential the FCC can be, here’s a quote in the Axios story from a TikTok spokesperson.
“Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner. We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the U.S. Government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns.”
Yeah, not really. There’s still concern that the Chinese government will still have access if the data is stored outside of China.
The ultimate irony is that many U.S. politicians use TikTok aggressively heading into the midterm elections.
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