The video-sharing app TikTok reached new heights during the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, knocking Google out of first place as the most popular website in the world with over 100 million users in the United States, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Trump administration had previously attempted to crack down on the service, with limited success, for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) connections with its parent company ByteDance.
"The Biden administration believes certain countries, including the People's Republic of China, seek to leverage digital technologies and Americans' data in ways that present unacceptable national security risks while advancing authoritarian controls and interests," a National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson told the Examiner.
"That is why President Biden put forward a new Executive Order to take strong steps to protect Americans' sensitive data from collection and utilization by foreign adversaries, including the PRC."
The NSC assured an independent review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States was also ongoing.
In July of last year, the Trump administration labeled TikTok a national security threat due to concerns the CCP was exploiting the app to obtain data from U.S. users.
A letter to ByteDance from the prior administration regarding their acquisition of U.S.-based social media companies said, "the national security risks arising as a result of the transaction include furthering the Chinese government's ability to access and exploit TikTok user data on millions of Americans."
Former President Trump issued an executive order prohibiting transactions with ByteDance and TikTok within 45 days soon thereafter.
In June, Biden replaced the Trump-era executive orders against TikTok with his own, saying vast data collection on apps "threatens to provide foreign adversaries with access to that information."
The president also ordered Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other Biden officials to conduct reviews of Chinese applications.
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