Shares of Snap and Meta rose 3.4% and 2.2%, respectively, after Brendan Carr, a Federal Communications Commissioner, proposed that the U.S. government ban TikTok.
Brendan Carr, one of five FCC commissioners, told the media site that the Council on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) should prohibit TikTok, adding, “I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban.”
Carr’s comments do not necessarily indicate pending legal action against TikTok, and TikTok has responded that Carr’s comments are his opinion because he has “no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok.”
Carr wants TikTok banned because of concerns about potential national security risks posed by TikTok, and because TikTok engineers in China have gained access to sensitive information about U.S. users, such as phone numbers. Another reason seems to be that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, intends to use the app to access information about some users.
Carr had previously called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores in June, expressing concern that the Chinese-owned video app, which is popular with young Americans, is sending data to Beijing.
Axios reported that “TikTok is becoming a form of critical information infrastructure — making the app’s ownership by a Chinese parent company a target of growing national security concern.”
The sources for this piece include an article in CNBC.
