TikTok downplayed news of U.S. calls for the social network’s Chinese owners to sell stakes in the app, saying it was not conducive to protecting American national security.
The statement came Wednesday in response to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that indicated that the Treasury Department’s U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment had threatened to ban the app in the United States if it remained in the hands of Chinese group ByteDance.
“If the goal is to protect national security, alienation will not solve the problem. The change of ownership will not impose any new restrictions on the flow or access to data, ”a TikTok spokesperson said.