Young, Colleagues Demand Action from Biden Administration Against TikTok

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding answers about actions the Biden administration is taking to combat the national security risks associated with TikTok, a social media platform developed and owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd.

In part, the senators wrote, “The Biden Administration has seemingly done nothing to enforce the August 14 order nearly two years since its promulgation. The results of the security reviews, likewise, have not been publicly released after one year. Instead, news reports indicate TikTok is nearing a deal with a U.S. company to ‘store its U.S. users’ information without its Chinese parent ByteDance having access to it, hoping to address U.S. regulatory concerns.’”

“The proposed TikTok deal would do little to address the core security concerns that motivated the August 14 order. That order was not simply concerned about data, but about a Chinese company’s ownership of a social media platform in America. If the Biden Administration focuses solely on data storage and integrity to the exclusion of the critical issue of ByteDance’s ownership, control, and influence of TikTok, serious security risks will remain and the August 14 order will go unenforced,” the senators continued.

Text of the letter may be found here.