Washington Post Technology reporter Drew Harwell is spending a lot of his time these days working on stories about TikTok, a massively popular app that's experiencing the kind of growth right now that Facebook and Instagram did back in their heydays.

So, Drew, are you on TikTok? Do you have a TikTok account? I do. I'm not a creator. I'm just a weird lurker. My editor is also kind of obsessed with it.

You haven't posted any videos?

No, I haven't posted anything. I feel a lot of pressure because everything that goes on there is really funny and smart and clever, and I'm none of those things.

My favorite TikTok video that I've seen so far is a bunch of quick shots of a guy throwing slices of cheese at the windows of cars sitting next to him at stoplights.

And each time a cheese slice sticks to a window, the music is synced so that a huge

beat drops. It's hypnotic. Yeah, when I look at it, it's, there's always music behind everything,

and there's a lot of pranks, a lot of sort of quick one-liners, a lot of funny visual stuff,

and it's all young people. Is that, is the core user, the teen, the very young person, the under 25?

Yeah, it's almost entirely young people.

That's changing a little bit.

But like the high schoolers who would never dream of going on Facebook, they're all on TikTok.

And it is sort of the capital of their comedy today.

So far, this sounds like your pretty standard social media story.

Teens flock to some new app where they post wacky videos.

Adults scramble to figure out why this is the hot new app.

And meanwhile, celebrities and brands scramble to figure out how to use the app to connect with the teens and market things to them.

Will Smith, Reese Witherspoon, the NFL, these entities all have a presence on TikTok.

But here's where it gets weird.

Last month, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer and Republican Senator Tom Cotton sent a joint

letter to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

They asked about security risks around TikTok and wondered if TikTok is, quote,

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