According to the Wall Street Journal, the Biden Administration is requesting that ByteDance, the Chinese business that owns TikTok, sell their share in the popular video-sharing app, or face a possible prohibition in the United States.
According to persons familiar with the matter, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius) made a recent request.
The move is the latest in a nationwide crackdown on the Chinese-owned video app. The app has already been subject to several local, state, and federal government restrictions.
Senator Michael Bennet of the United States wrote an open letter to Apple and Google executives in February, urging them to remove the social app from their app stores, claiming that it poses a specific threat to US national security.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing China-based ByteDance to sell its TikTok subsidiary in the United States in August 2020, citing evidence of potential national security threats.
The Trump administration claimed there was "credible evidence" that ByteDance may "assume a threat to the United States' national security."
Former US President Donald Trump's executive orders that banned Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat in the United States were revoked in June 2021 by US President Joe Biden.
On security grounds, the BBC News reports that TikTok will be banned on British government phones and other devices used by British government ministers and civil servants. Canada, Belgium, and the European Commission have already banned the app from being installed on government phones.
