SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California State Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones from San Diego admits that TikTok has some perks.
“A few (videos) over 60,000 views," Jones said.
He reaches a wider audience. He gets more views on TikTok than he does on Instagram. That was, until Wedneday.
“I made the announcement this morning that I'm deactivating my TikTok platform,” Jones said.
He also deactivated the Republican Caucus TikTok account. He said the risks outweigh the benefits.
“China law on TikTok, because it's a Chinese-based company, that they have to turn over whatever data they have to the Chinese government whenever the government asks for it," Jones said. "And so I don't think as citizens of California, we want our personal data being turned over to the Chinese government.”
Jones cited national security officials who believe the app, owned by Bytedance, could influence users through algorithms, track users, and collect data for espionage purposes.
“It is, from my perspective, a clear and present danger in terms of the amount of data that is collected," Matt Stamper said. "It has elements within its terms of service that allow TikTok to share the information collected with anybody and everybody that they choose to up to and including potentially agencies within the chinese government.”
Matt Stamper is Chief Information Security Officer for Evotek and author of Data Privacy Program Guide.
CBS 8's Marcella Lee interviewed him in September. He serves on the board of directors for the for the San Diego Chapter of ISACA and is co-chair of the Telecommunications Sector for the San Diego chapter of InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and the private sector, working to prevent hostile acts against the U.S.
“The way the terms of services are written, they know your files, they know your data, they know your contacts," Stamper said.
Jones said this is a bipartisan effort. Jones teamed up with Napa Democrat Senator Bill Dodd to introduce a bill to remove apps like TikTok from all 230,000 state employee’s devices.
CNN has reported more than half the U.S. states have already done in some capacity.
Jones wants the Governor Gavin Newsom to follow suit.
"He's very active on social media," Jones said of Newsom. "He's a good communicator."
“I'm hoping that the governor will follow the Senate's lead and deactivate his account as well," Jones said, "until we can get confidence that that these issues are taking care of."
TikTok Spokesperson Jamal Brown responded to the claims with a statement:
"There is no truth to Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones' claim. The Chinese Communist Party has neither direct nor indirect control of ByteDance or TikTok. ByteDance is a private, global company, nearly 60 percent of which is owned by global institutional investors, with the rest owned primarily by the company's founders and its employees—including thousands of Americans."
"Politicians with national security concerns should encourage the Administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok. The agreement under review will meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level. These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country's top national security agencies—plans that we are well underway in implementing—to further secure our platform in the United States, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them."
Newsom's office responded saying, "We have our experts reviewing the issue but nothing to share beyond that at this time."
WATCH RELATED: Inside TikTok's terms of service (Sep. 20222).