Brendan Carr wants Google and Apple to get rid of TikTok

Brendan Carr just told Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores as he wrote in a tweet that included the image of a letter he sent to both Apple and Google that read, “TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing”. He continued to reference a recent BuzzFeed News report that examined leaked video from internal meetings at TikTok, based on those internal audio recordings, the China-based employees of TikTok, Bytedance have reportedly accessed private information from users in the US.

A member of the Trust and Safety Department at TikTok Said during a meeting in September that “everything is seen in China”. The director said in another meeting at a Beijing-based engineer referred to as “Master Admin” that had “Access to everything”. Just hours before BuzzFeed News published their report, TikTok announced that they migrated 100% of US user traffic to a new Oracle cloud infrastructure, which was part of the company’s efforts to address concerns by US authorities about how they handled information from users in the country.

TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing. 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. pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 28, 2022

In the letter shared by Brendan Carr, he listed other reports showing evidence and determinations regarding the data practices at TikTok. Carr wrote, “It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s unchecked access to that sensitive data.”

Brendan Carr is giving Apple and Google until July 8th to explain why they aren’t removing the app from their stores, and if they refused to do so. That said, Brendan Carr was the only signee of the letter, and it doesn’t look like any other FCC commissioners are currently involved with this.