TikTok Should Be Banned by Apple and Google App Stores, Trump-Appointed FCC Commissioner Opines

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorTikTok, the massively popular short-form video app, is in the crosshairs of American policymakers again over its ownership by Chinese internet giant ByteDance.Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner of the FCC, posted a letter to Apple and Google on Twitter, urging the tech giants to remove TikTok from their respective app stores — calling it “an unacceptable national security risk.”“TikTok is not just another video app.

That’s the sheep’s clothing,” Carr, who was appointed to the FCC in 2017 by Donald Trump, said in the tweet Tuesday accompanying the letter. “It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing.

I’ve called on @Apple & @Google to remove TikTok from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices.” Carr’s comments amount to little more than saber-rattling, given that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate apps.

His call to have TikTok banned in the U.S. came after a June 17 BuzzFeed News report that TikTok staffers in China have “repeatedly” accessed U.S.-based users’ data.“TikTok’s pattern of conduct and misrepresentations regarding the unfettered access that persons in Beijing have to sensitive U.S.