Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Less than two months after TikTok came under fire for appearing to censor videos related to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the app is facing a new challenge from the US government. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has contacted TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance with concerns that the app could pose a threat to US citizens.
Those concerns will most likely lead to a national security review — one that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been calling for since early October. In the end, ByteDance could be forced to sell off Musical.ly, the American company it acquired in 2017 that helped launch TikTok’s viral success. If that happens, it could mark the end of TikTok in the US, and…