Republican Party Tuduh Information GIVEn TikTok To The US Congress Misleading

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (rightmost), a Republican representative at the US Congress. (photo: Twitter @cathymcmorris)

JAKARTA - Republican Congressmen, who will set a House of Representatives agenda next year, pressed the short video app TikTok on Tuesday, November 22, fearing the company may have misled Congress into how much user data it shares with China, where TikTok owners, ByteDance, headquartered.

Representatives of Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top Republican on the House Energy and Trade Committee, and Representative James Comer, the top Republican on the Supervisory Committee, wrote to TikTok to say the information provided at the staff briefing appeared inaccurate.

"Some of the information TikTok provided during staff briefings seems untrue or misleading, including that TikTok is not tracking user locations in the US," Republican lawmakers said in a letter to TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi▁hukum and dated Tuesday, November 11.

TikTok itself did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on the letter.

Following the election victory earlier this month, Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives in January. The letter could be a sign of tight supervision they plan to apply to Chinese companies including TikTok, the target Republican government of former President Donald Trump.

But the Democratic Joe Biden administration has also expressed concern about TikTok. FBI Director Christopher Wray said earlier this month the Chinese government could use video sharing apps to influence users or control their devices.

Among other questions, lawmakers called on TikTok to give a draft of any deal that is being negotiated with the Biden administration to allow TikTok to remain active in the United States.

The US government's Foreign Investment Committee (CFIUS), which reviews US acquisitions by foreign companies for potential national security risks, in 2020 ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok due to concerns that US user data could be passed on to the Chinese communist government.

CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks for months with the aim of reaching a national security deal to protect data on more than 100 million TikTok users.

President Joe Biden in June 2021 revoked a series of Trump executive orders seeking to ban TikTok's new downloads and ordered the Commerce Department to conduct a review of the security concerns posed by the app.