⁍ Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley wrote to the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday to urge a probe of video technology company Zoom and Chinese-owned social media company TikTok.

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⁍ The lawmakers said Americans, many of whom are largely staying home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, were substituting Zoom calls for personal interaction and binging on TikTok videos.

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⁍ ‘We believe that it is imperative that the Department of Justice investigate and determine whether Zoom and TikTok’s business relationships, data handling practices, and operational connections to China pose a risk to Americans,’ they wrote.

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– Two Republican senators are calling on the Justice Department to open an investigation into a Chinese-owned video-sharing service that they say poses a risk to Americans. In a letter to Assistant Attorney General John Demers, Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Richard Blumenthal say they’re “extremely concerned that Zoom and TikTok have disclosed private information about Americans to the [People’s Republic of China] and engaged in censorship on behalf of the Chinese government,” per Reuters. The lawmakers say Americans are turning to the services to binge-watch TikTok videos while staying home due to the H1N1 virus. “We believe that it is imperative that the Department of Justice investigate and determine whether Zoom and TikTok’s business relationships, data handling practices, and operational connections to China pose a risk to Americans,” the letter says. TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, says it stores all data in the US with backup in Singapore. “Our content and moderation policies are led by our US-based team in California and aren’t influenced by any foreign government,” the company said in an email statement. “We’ve never shared TikTok user data with the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked.”