Welcome to the Tech Meme Right Home for Thursday, October 24, 2019.

I'm Brian McCullough. Today is Tik-Toc, a national security risk?

Inquiring senators want to know.

Earnings, running the gamut from bad to surprisingly good from Twitter, Amazon and

Tesla, and to paraphrase an old saw, if a voicemail system goes down in the wild, how would anyone

even notice?

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Tom Cotton have asked

U.S. intelligence officials to determine whether or not Tic-Toc poses

quote national security risks quoting the Washington Post and a

letter to Joseph McGuire the director of national intelligence the lawmakers

questioned Tik-Toc's data collection practices and whether the app adheres to censorship rules directed by the Chinese government that could limit what US users see.

Tik-Tok, which provides users a feed of short videos has become wildly popular among teenagers

worldwide. With over 110 million downloads in the U.S. alone, Tic-Toc is a potential

counterintelligence threat we cannot ignore, wrote Schumer and Cotton, who sits on the

Senate Intelligence Committee. Given these concerns, we ask that the intelligence community

conduct an assessment of the national security risks posed by Tik-Tok and other China-based

content platforms operating in the US and brief Congress on these findings."

End quote. In somewhat related news, Triller is a U.S-based Tik-Toc rival,

who claims it has amassed 13 million monthly active users

and has had 60 million downloads over the course of its lifetime.

Triller has raised a $28 million series B following an 11.5 million

...