The administration of US President Joe Biden has demanded that the Chinese owners of the social media app TikTok sell their shares in the company, or else they risk a possible ban in the United States, according to what the company told The Hill newspaper.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to publish a report about pressures from the US Foreign Investment Committee, affiliated with the Treasury Department, on the app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. TikTok confirmed that it received this from the committee.

The US committee's demands came amid what The Hill described as security concerns about the short video sharing app, especially the possibility of the Chinese government accessing data of Chinese users.

The US Congress had intensified its scrutiny of TikTok, spoke of a possible ban, and Republicans criticized the Biden administration for not taking action on this perceived threat.

For its part, TikTok responded to the US demands, saying that selling shares will not solve the perceived national security issues. A TikTok spokesperson said that if the goal was to protect national security, liquidation would not solve the problem, as a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access.

The TikTok spokesperson also clarified that the best way to address national security concerns is through transparency, protecting US users' systems and data within the United States, with strong third-party oversight, auditing, and verification, which they are already doing.

TikTok had been negotiating with the US Foreign Investment Committee for more than two years to allow the app to continue operating within the United States. More than 100 million people use this app in the United States.

TikTok said it is still proceeding with the so-called Texas project, which is a plan for the user's traffic to pass through Oracle's computing servers in Texas, in an attempt to address some of the security concerns.