PENNSYLVANIA, USA — TikTok’s future in the U.S. will be challenged on Wednesday.
U.S. House members are voting on a bill that gives TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, an ultimatum: sell the app within six months, or TikTok will be banned nationwide.
This comes after the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed a bill targeting the app last Thursday.
Cyber security experts say their concern with the Chinese company includes the possibility of the Chinese government spying and data breaches.
“We don’t have any control of what information they collect or what information they use," said Angel Karns, a former professor of cyber security at Penn State. "They could be installing back doors to your bank accounts to your credit cards and just waiting for the right moment to mess with all that.”
Experts say social media companies here at home aren't off the hook either. While the U.S. has more ways to regulate them, cyber security experts claim they still pose a problem.
“They are not telling us all with what they’re doing with the data they collect about us," said Karns. "Some of these companies are being called into court because, ‘hey you said you were going to do this, but now you’re doing this;’ they're collecting more than they said they would.”
TikTok fired back on the social media app X, telling U.S. lawmakers the ban would be an attack on the First Amendment rights of about 170 million Americans. The post was later taken down.
But cyber security experts still see TikTok as a risk. They say it may be better to ditch the app altogether.
“I would wipe and reset my phone to a factory state and reload everything," said Karns. "That’s the only way you can guarantee there’s no back doors left on the app.”