US FBI director says TikTok poses national security concerns

The U.S. operations of Chinese-owned TikTok raise national security concerns, FBI Director Chris Wray said on Tuesday, flagging the risk that the Chinese government could harness the video-sharing app to influence users or control their devices.

Risks include “the possibility that the Chinese government could use to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations,” Wray told U.S. lawmakers.

Beijing could also use the popular app, owned by ByteDance, to “control software on millions of devices,” giving it the opportunity to “technically compromise” those devices, he added.