Brendan Carr, Republican FCC commissioner sent a warning letter to Google and Apple June 24 warning about the new report. Buzzfeed, the notion users’ data from the very popular app TikTok is being stored only in the U.S. is false, and that, as Buzzfeed’s report noted, “everything is seen in China.”
The letter is not yet available on Carr’s FCC website, but the commissioner made it available in a tweet thread Tuesday.
“TikTok is not what it appears to be on the surface. You can share memes and funny videos with it. That’s the sheep’s clothing,” he said in the letter. “At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data.”
TikTok doesn’t just see its users dance videos.
It can collect search and browsing history, keystroke patterns and biometric identifiers. pic.twitter.com/GKheArMM5X
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 28, 2022
Numerous provisions of Apple’s & Google’s policies are relevant to TikTok’s pattern of surreptitious data harvesting—a pattern that runs contrary to its public representations.
And there’s plenty of precedent for holding TikTok accountable by booting it from these app stores. pic.twitter.com/QH1w4ERDdb
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 29, 2022
What’s interesting about Carr’s letter, which follows an attempted ban of the app (owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd.) by the Trump administration — an effort ultimately blocked by two federal judges and not taken up by the Biden administration — is that Carr isn’t just warning the two tech companies about the dangers posed by the app. Carr asks Google parent company Alphabet, Inc. and Apple to explain why the app is still available, despite being blocked by the U.S. Military. Carr also wants to know why the app is still available for download. Buzzfeed It appears that user data was only being sent to American databases. This is a falsehood.
“It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data,” Federal Communications Commission member Brendan Carr wrote in a letter to Apple and Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc.
…
Republican Mr. Carr requested that Apple and Google take down TikTok’s app store because it violated their safety policies. Mr. Carr’s letter, which was earlier reported by CNBC, was dated Friday. On Tuesday, he tweeted about the matter and sent an email.
CNBC reported Wednesday, that Carr requested a reply from both tech titans by the beginning of next month.
Carr’s letter, dated June 24 on FCC letterhead, said if the Apple and Alphabet do not remove TikTok from their app stores, they should provide statements to him by July 8.
The statements should explain “the basis for your company’s conclusion that the surreptitious access of private and sensitive U.S. user data by persons located in Beijing, coupled with TikTok’s pattern of misleading representations and conduct, does not run afoul of any of your app store policies,” he said.
While the Biden administration continues to study whether China’s alleged unfettered access to user information of a reported 1-plus billion active users, new reports of how foreign nations use social media to affect U.S. policy have been breaking simultaneously. In a new report titled, “Chinese posed as local Texans online to target rare earth producer,” The Washington Times reports that, “China conducted a sophisticated disinformation campaign against a company building a rare earth minerals facility in Texas for the Pentagon, according to the Pentagon and a cybersecurity firm.”
Fake Twitter accounts claimed the Texas plant would cause irreversible environmental damage, Mandiant stated in a blog post report. These fake accounts stated that radioactive contamination would cause health problems, such as cancer and genetic mutations in babies, to residents.
With concerns coming from the left about the promulgation of disinformation online, Carr’s request that tech companies explain why they allow apps that give China — a known source of propaganda — the opportunity to review social media user data is a good idea.
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