JAKARTA - On Monday, March 20, a short video sharing app, TikTok announced that it now has 150 million monthly active users in the United States, an increase from the 100 million announced in 2020.
The app, which is owned by a Chinese company, confirmed the figure ahead of the testimony of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew before the Energy and Trade Committee House on Thursday, March 23.
On Friday, March 17, six more US senators supported bipartisan legislation to give President Joe Biden the new power to ban TikTok for national security reasons. Last week, TikTok said that the Biden administration demanded its Chinese owners release their shares in the app or would face bans in the United States.
The app faces growing pressure in Washington including demands to ban the app by many members of Congress who fear US TikTok user data could fall into the hands of the Chinese government. TikTok said in September 2021 that globally it has more than 1 billion monthly active users.
The chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who jointly sponsored legislation to give the government more power to ban TikTok, told an event he didn't think US TikTok users' data was safe.
"The idea mentioned that the data can be kept safe under the laws of the Chinese Communist Party is inconclusive," he said.
TikTok said it had spent more than 1.5 billion US dollars (Rp23 trillion) on strict data security efforts, dismissed spying allegations and said "if protecting national security is the goal, relinquishing ownership will not solve the problem: changing ownership will not impose new restrictions on data streams or access."
This new figure is a sign of widespread popularity of applications, especially among young Americans. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Bloomberg News that the ban on TikTok could have a political impact. "Politition within me thinks that you will lose every voter under the age of 35, forever," he said.
Some content creators of TikTok will come to Washington this week to maintain why the app should not be banned.
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