Recently, a constituent emailed my office about TikTok. 'I have not as yet seen evidence that the app poses security risks,' he wrote. I hear this a lot from Americans skeptical of Congress' bill to require TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.Lawmakers have a responsibility to respond directly to this and other concerns, because forcing a company to divest has serious implications. My response is this: ByteDance isn't a normal company.
government blacklists iFLYTEK, Megvii, and SenseTime—all of which have partnered with ByteDance—for enabling Beijing's genocide against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic and religious groups. Another ByteDance partner, Sugon, is blacklisted for 'helping the Chinese military do nuclear weapons simulation testing and hypersonic glide vehicle testing.