{"id":1761836,"date":"2022-12-04T06:08:05","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T11:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1761836"},"modified":"2022-12-04T07:18:30","modified_gmt":"2022-12-04T12:18:30","slug":"fbi-director-warns-china-could-use-tiktok-for-influence-operations-surveillance-on-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fbi-director-warns-china-could-use-tiktok-for-influence-operations-surveillance-on-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Director Warns China Could Use TikTok for Influence Operations, Surveillance on Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffbi-director-warns-china-could-use-tiktok-for-influence-operations-surveillance-on-americans%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1761836&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>FBI Director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-christopher-wray\">Christopher Wray<\/a> on Friday outlined key threats posed by video sharing app TikTok and said that U.S.\u00a0officials are still working on how to address the app\u2019s national security concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Wray said that the FBI has security concerns about Tiktok, which is owned by private Chinese company Bytedance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[TikTok\u2019s] parent company [Bytedance] is\u00a0controlled by the Chinese government\u00a0and it gives them the potential to leverage the app in ways that I think should concern us,\u201d Wray\u00a0told an audience at the University of Michigan\u2019s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the app gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) the ability to control the recommendation algorithm, which \u201callows them to\u00a0manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>China could potentially use TikTok to collect data on its users, which could be used for traditional espionage operations, Wray stated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey also have the ability on it to get access [via] the software through devices,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cSo you have millions of devices and that gives them the ability to engage in different kinds of malicious cyber activity through that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn\u2019t share our values and that has a mission that\u2019s very much at odds with what\u2019s in the best interest of the United States,\u201d the FBI director said. \u201cThat should concern us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His comments appear to reiterate those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/tiktok-is-a-national-security-threat-fbi-director-wray_4865461.html\">made to Congress<\/a> in November when he was asked whether the CCP was actively using ByteDance or TikTok to surveil Americans.<\/p>\n<div class=\"morearticles\"><strong>Read More<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"post_list\">\n<div class=\"article\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/tiktok-is-everything-that-you-do-not-want-in-a-modern-democracy-tech-expert_4766818.html\">TikTok Is \u2018Everything That You Do Not Want in a Modern Democracy\u2019: Tech Expert<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4614866\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/07\/22\/GettyImages-1269166224-1200x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy size-medium wp-image-4614866\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/themes\/eet\/images\/white.png\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/GettyImages-1269166224-600x400-1.jpg\" alt=\"TikTok logo\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4614866\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/GettyImages-1269166224-600x400-1.jpg\" alt=\"TikTok logo\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> The TikTok logo is displayed outside a TikTok office in Culver City, Calif., on Aug. 27, 2020. (Mario Tama\/Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>U.S. officials and TikTok are now in talks over a possible agreement that would resolve U.S. national security concerns, a process that Wray said was taking place across U.S. government agencies.\u00a0\u201cBut I think it starts with awareness about the risks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Director Wray has previously said, the FBI\u2019s input is being considered as part of our ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Government,\u201d TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile we can\u2019t comment on the specifics of those confidential discussions, we are confident that we are on a path to fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns and have already made significant strides toward implementing those solutions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTikTok Inc., which offers the TikTok service in the United States, is a U.S. company bound by U.S. laws,\u201d Oberwetter also noted.<\/p>\n<p>TikTok does not operate in China, where ByteDance provides a similar app to users.<\/p>\n<p>While TikTok has previously\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-50640110\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-summari-detected=\"true\" data-summari-has-summary=\"false\">said<\/a>\u00a0that all U.S. user data was stored within the United States, it has\u00a0since admitted that this is not true. In a September congressional hearing, TikTok executives\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/07\/27\/leaked-tiktok-memo-told-workers-to-downplay-the-china-association\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-summari-detected=\"true\" data-summari-has-summary=\"false\">refused<\/a>\u00a0to commit to stopping the flow of American data to China.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3261160\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2020\/03\/05\/ByteDance-security_USA-CHINA-TIK-TOK-1200x704.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy size-medium wp-image-3261160\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/themes\/eet\/images\/white.png\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ByteDance-security_USA-CHINA-TIK-TOK-600x352-1.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"352\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3261160\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ByteDance-security_USA-CHINA-TIK-TOK-600x352-1.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"352\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> TikTok logos are seen on smartphones in front of a displayed ByteDance logo in this illustration taken on Nov. 27, 2019. (Dado Ruvic\/Reuters)<\/figure>\n<p>TikTok rose in popularity in the United States in 2017 after ByteDance acquired\u00a0Chinese-owned social media company Musical.ly and paired its Santa Monica office with TikTok.<\/p>\n<p>TikTok did not inform U.S. officials about the Musical.ly-TikTok merger despite both companies\u2019 ties to China, independent investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/tiktok-is-everything-that-you-do-not-want-in-a-modern-democracy-tech-expert_4766818.html\">told<\/a> The Epoch Times\u2019s \u201cAmerican Thought Leaders\u201d in September.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are many red flags, but the biggest red flag about this acquisition is that TikTok did not notify the U.S. government about the acquisition,\u201d Cain said. \u201cThat should sound alarm bells. Why did TikTok decide not to do that review? It\u2019s as if they kind of snuck into the market and placed their software in the hands of the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Handing Data to CCP<\/h2>\n<p>Following that revelation, and due to concerns about Chinese influence, the Trump administration in 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/trump-urges-us-company-to-buy-tiktok-sets-september-as-deadline_3448619.html\">threatened<\/a> to ban TikTok in the United States and tried to get ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. parent company. Since then, the case has been under\u00a0review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to examine possible national security risks.<\/p>\n<p>Cain had told the U.S. Senate in September (<a href=\"https:\/\/lincolnpolicy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Geoffrey-Cain-HSGAC-testimony-9-14-22-1.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) that CCP data laws meant that\u00a0all companies operating within mainland China or with a majority Chinese stake must hand over all data to the CCP upon request. As such, an executive at TikTok or ByteDance could be legally compelled by the CCP to hand over the company\u2019s data, including information on users.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s not going to be a separate line between [TikTok and ByteDance], the Chinese Communist Party will see TikTok as fundamentally a Chinese company and one that needs to report to the Chinese Communist Party,\u201d Cain told \u201cAmerican Thought Leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Andrew Thornebrooke, Jan Jekielek, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-mimi-nguyen-ly\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/WEB_MimiNguyen_1.jpg\" alt=\"Mimi Nguyen Ly\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Mimi Nguyen Ly is a senior reporter for the Epoch Times. She covers U.S. news and world news. Contact her at mimi.nl@epochtimes.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday outlined key threats posed by video sharing app TikTok and said that U.S.\u00a0officials are still working on how to address the app\u2019s national security<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1761839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1761836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1761836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1761839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1761836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1761836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1761836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}