The Chinese owners of TikTok may be facing pressure to divest. The security concerns of the popular social media platform have led some Biden administration officials to push for a sale of the company’s US operations “to ensure Beijing can’t harness the app for espionage and political influence”.
The idea of a forced sale was raised in discussions by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, with representatives from the Pentagon and Department of Justice pushing for the sale. Among the concerns is the idea that the Chinese government could use TikTok, which is owned by Chinese conglomerate ByteDance, to acquire information on US users as well as dictate what content is or isn’t shown on the platform “in a bid to influence US popular opinion.”
Source:cnet.com