Even as TikTok is fronted with a pushback from US government quarters over concerns of app’s alleged spying, the video hosting platform is reluctant to become irrelevant in the country. As per a latest report by TikTok, the number of users on the platform have seen an uptick reaching 150 million monthly active users in US.
The application had 100 million active users in 2020. The Chinese application is already thriving in US. It has become the source of many entertaining and viral trends.
The comes as TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is all set to testify before US House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday. US President Joe Biden in December last year signed a bill banning the Chinese app on devices of federal government employees.
The move was taken amid concerns that the app, which is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, poses threat to national security.
US government earier levelled allegations on TikTok saying that the application shares potential data with the Chinese government, an accusation that the Chinese app has refuted.
As per TikTok data, over one billion people worldwide use the app to learn something new or connect generally with others that hold shared interests. Earlier, Biden has given an ultimatum to TikTok saying that the application will face a potential ban if its Chinese owners divest their stakes in it.
Reacting to this, the TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said, “If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem.”
“A change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access. The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, US-based protection of US user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing,” he added as per a CNN report.
Moreover, in what appeared to be company’s corporate strategy to distance itself from the Chinese government, TikTok earlier also took out newspaper ads in Australian newspapers. As per reports, a TikTok ad in The Australian read the tagline “Don’t make TikTok a political football.”
There are also reports suggesting that TikTok has an “army of lobbyists” which is trying to change the opinion of influential people in Washington to avoid a ban on the Chinese app.
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