Why is the Biden administration threatening to ban TikTok if it doesn’t sell?

The US government has said that the Chinese app TikTok must be sold or face a possible ban in the country, according to US reports.

The United States accuses the video-sharing app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, of posing a threat to US national security through data collected from millions of users.

The company that owns the TikTok app confirmed to the BBC the veracity of the ownership change request, which was first revealed by the American Wall Street Journal.

The company said the forced sale would not disrupt data flow or access.

US officials have raised concerns for years that user data from the popular app could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, US President Joe Biden’s administration wants ByteDance to move away from TikTok so that there is a clear separation from the China app.

The newspaper said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which oversees national security risks, unanimously recommended that the Chinese company be separated from the app.

A TikTok spokesperson said he did not dispute the WSJ report and confirmed that he had been contacted by the United States Committee on Foreign Investment.

However, the spokesman said the reports were exaggerated and it was unclear what the US request meant in practical terms.

He added that “if the goal is to protect national security, divestment does not solve the problem: a change in ownership will not impose new restrictions on data flow or access.”

The Chinese spokesman went on to say that the best way to “address national security concerns is the transparent protection of user data and systems by the United States.”

The first threat to ban TikTok in 2020 came from former US President Donald Trump

However, the Biden administration has also taken a dim view of the activity of the Chinese social network.

And it is that the Tik Tok application stores huge amounts of data about its users, which is what the Instagram and Twitter applications do. There are concerns that the information could pass to the Chinese government.

TikTok says it has worked to transfer all user data on US soil to the United States as part of an initiative it calls “Project Texas.”

The company that owns the app told BBC News that it still plans to go ahead with the plan.

The development comes a week after the announcement of new legislation that would expand the US President’s authority to ban TikTok nationwide, which was unveiled in the Senate.

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TikTok is known to be banned on government phones in the United States, Canada, and the European Union.

The CEO of the Chinese company, Xu Ziqiu, is scheduled to testify before the US Congress next week