The short-video sharing app now has 150 million monthly active users in the United States, up from 100 million it said it had in 2020, according to WASHINGTON TikTok.
The Chinese app confirms the figure ahead of the testimony of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday.
On Friday, six more U.S. senators backed bipartisan legislation to give President Joe Biden new powers to ban TikTok on national security grounds. Last week, TikTok said that the Biden administration demanded that its Chinese owners divest their stake in the app, or it could face a U.S. ban.
TikTok said in September 2021 that it had more than 1 billion monthly users.
Senator Mark Warner, who is co-sponsoring legislation to give the administration more powers to ban TikTok, said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast that he did not think TikTok U.S. data was safe.
The smell test doesn't pass the idea that the data can be made safe under Chinese Communist Party law. TikTok said it has spent more than 1.5 billion on rigorous data security efforts, rejected spying allegations and said if protecting national security is the objective, a change in ownership wouldn't impose any new restrictions on data flows or access. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Bloomberg News that there could be political ramifications to banning TikTok. She said that the politician in me thinks you're going to lose every voter under 35, forever.
Some TikTok content creators will come to Washington this week to make the case why the app should not be banned.