From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tevernice and this is The Daily.

TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the country used by one out of every three Americans.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration has threatened to ban it.

Today, Sapna Maheshwari on how an app known for videos of lip syncing, dancing and bread baking

is now seen by the U.S. government as a threat to national security.

It's Monday, March 20th.

So Sapna, you're a business reporter for The Times and you cover TikTok, which is of course an extremely popular app that lots of people are using.

And for many months now, it has been surrounded by lots of controversy.

And I want you to tell me about that. Tell me what's happening.

Sure, so TikTok is of course a super popular app. It's full of short-form videos, teens love it. They're on it all the time.

But TikTok, while it appears on your phone with apps like Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter, stands apart from these companies because it's owned by a Chinese company called Bite Dance.

And that ownership has increasingly been raising skepticism and alarm bells with the U.S. government.

And just recently, the Biden administration reportedly told TikTok that it wants the company's Chinese ownership to sell TikTok or face a possible ban in the U.S.

So a ban seems like a pretty drastic thing, Sapna. Like, what is the fear here? What's the government saying?

So basically, for a long time now, the government has been worried about national security concerns tied to TikTok.

And when you look at TikTok and you look at what teens are watching, that may sound crazy on the face of it.

But because of the company's Chinese ownership, U.S. officials have said that there is a chance that TikTok could be used by the Chinese government to collect information on Americans or influence them through TikTok's content.

And this moment is really pivotal because the Biden administration is saying, hey, this is a huge risk and we're doing something about it.

So Sapna, how do we get here? I mean, how did a Chinese company create one of the most beloved apps in America?

So we have to start with the company that owns TikTok, Bite Dance, with a Y.

It's a company that makes apps and it was founded in 2012 by a Chinese entrepreneur named Zhang E-Ming.

This was a young man who was very much inspired by companies like Amazon, by people like Mark Zuckerberg.

...