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A report from Forbes has disclosed that the Biden Administration sought to create a contractual pact with TikTok, which would have permitted the government to manipulate certain features of the Chinese app to monitor Americans.

Forbes obtained a draft of the contract that was meant to be between TikTok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). This contract would have fundamentally enabled various U.S. agencies to gain access to the app's records and activities, in return for permitting its continued operation in the U.S.

A Draft Of TikTok’s Plan To Avoid A Ban Gives The U.S. Government Unprecedented Oversight Power https://t.co/RJfFNIOY7J pic.twitter.com/Hqx233Wpwy

— Forbes (@Forbes) August 22, 2023

The report highlights that the draft agreement, which dates back to mid-2022, would have granted direct access to TikTok users' activities to both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense. This would have allowed for unannounced searches of TikTok's U.S. headquarters, files, and servers.

Essentially, the U.S. government would have been employing methods through TikTok that mirror those used by the Communist Party in China to oversee its citizens.

The Feds Asked TikTok for Lots of Domestic Spying Features https://t.co/seGAKkjE6z pic.twitter.com/2b5BrKwqc2

— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) August 21, 2023

Though not confirming the specifics of the report, TikTok released a statement acknowledging that it has been engaged in collaboration with CFIUS over a prolonged period.

"As has been widely reported, we’ve been working with CFIUS for well over a year to implement a national security agreement and have invested significant resources in implementing a firewall to isolate US user data,” the statement read.

It continued, “Today, all new protected US user data is stored in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in the US with tightly controlled and monitored gateways. We are doing more than any peer company to safeguard US national security interests.”

The report follows a decision by a federal judge in July, who stated that the Biden administration functioned akin to an "Orwellian Ministry of Truth" by collaborating with major tech platforms to suppress opinions it disagreed with during the Covid pandemic, as reported by Rebel News in 2022.