FCC commissioner urges U.S. government to ban TikTok

Brendan Carr, who is one of the five FCC commissioners, has pleaded with the United States government to formally ban TikTok.

Carr has said that TikTok’s ties with China present a national security risk. Carr made his case during an interview with Axios that it’s not possible to have “sufficient confidence” that Americans’ data on the app is not being sent back to Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

TikTok is owned by the Chinese tech giant, ByteDance, and Chinese law states that companies must share their data with the CCP should they request to see it.

TikTok is in negotiations with the U.S. Council on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) to determine whether it’s feasible to divest the app from ByteDance and allow it to function in the U.S.  This is an idea that was explored by former President Donald Trump during his time in office. 

Carr cautioned against this and doesn’t believe it’s possible to strike a deal that will fully ensure data is protected.

“I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban,” he told Axios, adding that there isn’t “a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the CCP.”

TikTok hit out at Carr in a statement to Axios, saying that there is no role for him in the litigation with the CFIUS. They also said that the FCC has no authority to regulate them.

“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,” a TikTok spokesperson told Axios on Tuesday. “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.”