FCC commissioner says TikTok should be banned by U.S. government

The leader of the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday the U.S. government should take action to ban the China-based social media app TikTok,

"I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told Axios.

Carr, one of five FCC commissioners, highlighted concerns about how TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, handle data from U.S. users. 

He said it is impossible to "come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the" Chinese Communist Party.

TikTok stood against Carr's comments, which are the strongest he's used against the app.

"Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner," a TikTok spokesperson said. "We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the U.S. Government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns."

TikTok is currently negotiating with the Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a national security committee, to decide whether the video platform can be divested from ByteDance into an American business in order to operate in the United States.