A member of the FCC called on Apple and Google to remove the popular TikTok social media app from their app stores. There are currently 1 billion people using the ultra-popular app.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told Google and Apple in a June 24 letter that the company behind TikTok is tied to the Chinese government and must comply with Chinese government demands to access to user data.
This comes after news site BuzzFeed reported that Chinese staff had accessed US user data on multiple occasions. TikTok admitted this was the case but said this was just part of their global workforce accessing the information for necessary purposes. However, it did say it would move US user data to servers hosted by an American company and delete backups of the data eventually.