TikTok dismissed a report late Wednesday that the Biden administration had asked its Chinese owners to sell their stake in the popular video-sharing app or face a ban in the U.S. Earlier on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. .Investments recently sought a divestment by Beijing-based ByteDance Inc. on national-security grounds. “If protecting national security is the objective, divestment does not solve the problem: the change in ownership will not impose any new restrictions on data flow or access,” TikTok spokeswoman Maureen Shanahan said in a statement Wednesday night. “The best way to address national security concerns is through transparent, US-based security of US user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, verification and verification, which we are already implementing.” Last week, Biden and a dozen senators from both sides of the aisle supported a bill that would allow the US Commerce Secretary to block foreign technologies like TikTok. TikTok executives have said that about 60% of ByteDance shares are held by investors, 20% by employees and 20% by its founders, who hold large voting rights. Many US officials are concerned that the Chinese government could access the data of American users. TikTok owns US-based data centers and Oracle Corp. ORCL, -1.87% has reportedly spent about $1.5 billion to secure data using infrastructure.
