Congress is considering legislation that would ban TikTok or force its Chinese parent-company to sell the social media platform.
With an estimated one billion users worldwide and 150 million in the U.S., TikTok is considered by some to be the most popular social media platform in the world — especially among teens and young adults.
The company has struggled to protect private user data from entities in China, and the platform has faced criticism for letting its algorithm serve users what some call a steady “diet of darkness” online.
As U.S. Congressman Bruce Westerman wrote last month,
Although TikTok executives claim that it does not share any data collected by the app, there are several Chinese laws in place that provide CCP officials access to all user data collected by Chinese-owned tech companies, like TikTok. This means the CCP has access to sensitive data, like the location of every TikTok user worldwide, including the over 210 million Americans who have downloaded the app.
The Wall Street Journal recently published a story explaining what it would look like if TikTok were banned in the U.S. You can watch that story below.
