Senators Urge CFIUS to Conclude TikTok Review, Impose Restrictions
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should “swiftly” conclude its review of TikTok (see 2212210007) and impose “strict structural restrictions” between the app and its Chinese parent company ByteDance, two senators said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week. Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said CFIUS should consider "separating" TikTok and ByteDance, adding that reports of the app’s collection of U.S. private data prove TikTok and ByteDance “cannot be trusted by CFIUS or its tens of millions of users in the United States.”
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“TikTok is clearly, inextricably dependent on ByteDance for its operations, and therefore beholden to the government of China,” the lawmakers said. “Therefore, CFIUS should impose structural separations and firm restrictions on ByteDance’s ability to: access Americans’ personal data; make decisions about content moderation; control its algorithmic recommendation systems; and oversee its U.S. operations.”
CFIUS “monitoring and hosting requirements will never address the distrust earned from ByteDance’s past conduct,” and CFIUS shouldn’t “put its imprimatur on a deal with TikTok if it cannot fully ensure our personal data and access to information” isn’t being collected by the Chinese government, the letter said. “At a minimum, CFIUS should ensure that executive decision making about the platform is based in the United States and fully free from coercive influence from Beijing” and that all decisions on personal data of American users is “out of the reach or influence of the Chinese government,” the lawmakers said. “We cannot rely on paper promises and unenforced half measures from a company that has abused our trust when our national security is at stake.”
A Treasury spokesperson didn’t comment.