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US: Gov opens national security investigation into TikTok

By  |  November 3, 2019

The US government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology’s US$1 billion acquisition of US social media app Musical.ly, reported Reuters. 

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    While the US$1 billion acquisition was completed two years ago, US lawmakers have been calling in recent weeks for a national security probe into TikTok, concerned the Chinese company may be censoring politically sensitive content, and raising questions about how it stores personal data. 

    TikTok has been growing more popular among US teenagers at a time of growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade and technology transfers.

    The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is in talks with TikTok about measures it could take to avoid divesting the Musical.ly assets it acquired, the sources said. Details of those talks, referred to by CFIUS as mitigation, could not be learned. The specific concerns that CFIUS has could also not be learned.

    Full Content: Reuters

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