#Trump considering banning TikTok in US over China fears

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday said his administration is considering banning Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok amid fears it could be weaponized to spy on Americans.

“We’re looking at TikTok. We’re thinking about making a decision,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if he was considering banning the platform.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was standing with Trump before the group departed for Texas, said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States was also reviewing the app’s national security risk.

“TikTok is under serious review and we’ll be making a recommendation to the president on it this week,” Mnuchin said.

The popular video app is owned by the Beijing-based internet company ByteDance and last month tapped Kevin Mayer, a former Disney exec, to become its US CEO.

But the installation of Mayer as the head of its American operations has not quelled concerns from US officials and lawmakers who fear TikTok is a cybersecurity threat.

On Tuesday, Joe Biden’s campaign instructed staff to delete the app from their phones, citing privacy and security concerns.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said last month that the US was “certainly looking at” banning TikTok over fears it could be sharing data collected from users’ devices with China’s Communist Party — a charge it has denied.

TikTok has grown increasingly popular among teen during the pandemic as tensions between Beijing and Washington threaten to boil over.

About 60 percent of TikTok’s 26.5 million monthly active users in the US are ages 16 to 24, the company said last year.

A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, on Tuesday wrote to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security with concerns that the app could be used by Beijing to interfere in US elections.

“TikTok has become a popular forum for Americans — particularly younger Americans — to engage in political conversations,” Sen. Cotton and his colleagues wrote, according to a Hill report.

“I’m greatly concerned that the CCP could use its control over TikTok to distort or manipulate these conversations to sow discord among Americans and to achieve its preferred political outcomes.”

Trump on Wednesday also said he would also be keeping a close eye on antitrust hearings on Capitol Hill where the heads of Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google will be grilled by lawmakers.

“We’re going to be watching the hearings today very closely because there’s a no question that what the big tech companies are doing is very bad,” he said, without going into specifics.