The administration is finalizing plans for potential investors in TikTok, with companies like Blackstone and Oracle among the prospective participants, as the deadline approaches for a decision on TikTok's U.S. operations. A meeting in the Oval Office, involving key officials such as Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump, is scheduled to discuss the deal and address national security and data privacy concerns stemming from previous legislation requiring ByteDance to divest its U.S. operations. Despite the importance of these discussions, the White House has not disclosed further details, leaving the situation closely monitored as they aim to balance national security with economic considerations.
Posts tagged as “ByteDance”
The US Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into Chinese tech giant ByteDance, the parent company of the popular social media app TikTok, over allegations of improper access to the personal information of US citizens. The investigation involves a subpoena to ByteDance and interviews by the FBI, and follows the firing of four ByteDance employees in December. The Biden administration is now considering a possible nationwide TikTok ban if ByteDance does not divest itself from the app. The investigation is ongoing, and it is unclear what the outcome will be.
Leading cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike's annual global threat report has revealed that China-linked hackers have been targeting 39 industries on nearly every continent, using increasingly sophisticated techniques to gather information. U.S. concerns about the potential for Chinese parent company ByteDance to give the Chinese Communist Party access to user data through the popular app TikTok are "absolutely valid," according to CrowdStrike's Chief Security Officer Shawn Henry. The Trump administration has proposed banning TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps, and the U.S. Senate has passed a bill to require companies to disclose any ties to the Chinese government.
The White House has issued guidance to all federal agencies to remove the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from all government-issued devices within 30 days. This follows a bill passed at the end of last year requiring federal agencies to remove the app due to security concerns. Within 90 days, agencies must include in contracts that the app cannot be used on devices and must cancel any contracts that necessitate its use.