Schumer and Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, co-wrote a letter to the acting director of national intelligence on Wednesday. The pair said they were writing “to express our concerns about TikTok … and the national security risks posed by its growing use in the United States”. Leaked documents showed how TikTok had instructed its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square or Tibetan independence, or which may be critical of China. “With over 110m downloads in the US alone, TikTok is a potential counter-intelligence threat we cannot ignore,” Schumer and Cotton wrote. “Given these concerns, we ask that the intelligence community conduct an assessment of the national security risks posed by TikTok and other China-based content platforms operating in the US and brief Congress on these findings.”

Source: The Guardian October 24, 2019 17:19 UTC