"It's clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing's apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data," FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote in a letter sent to Apple and Google, urging the two companies to remove TikTok from stores.
For context, Carr was appointed FCC Commissioner by Donald Trump, former US president, the same president who pushed to ban TikTok for a similar reason, labelling it a national security threat. In response, TikTok filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying that the move was part of Trump's re-election campaign, specifically targeting China.
Carr also holds the view that "the far left has worked to weaponise social media" by censoring conservatives, something echoed by Elon Musk who recently made an offer of $43 billion to purchase Twitter. You can usually find Carr on Fox News, appearing several times on Tucker Carlson Tonight, repeating right-wing rhetoric. Under him, the FCC has been pushing to regulate social media, not unlike the days of regulating TV and radio.
However, Carr was the only person to sign the letter (as reported by Engadget), with no other commissioners lending their support. He wrote, "TikTok is not just another video app. That's the sheep's clothing." He then cites a BuzzFeed report of 80 leaked internal TikTok meetings that show ByteDance employees accessing private information.
Before this report went live, TikTok shifted all of its US traffic to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to address the criticisms of how it was handling information, attempting to bolster security. Carr also cites the $92 million settlement TikTok paid in 2021 to settle several lawsuits from claimants accusing the platform of collecting personal data and selling it to advertisers without consent.
Aside from continuing the Republican anti-TikTok push, Carr is also pushing to reform Section 230 which gives information service providers immunity from civil liabilities when removing "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" content.