US politicians continue to pile pressure on social media app TikTok, with Democrat Senator Michael Bennet urging Apple and Google to remove the platform from their respective app stores.

The app is already banned from federal government devices, while a Republican-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee has tabled a bill which would outright ban the app in the US. TikTok has long faced scrutiny over how it handles user data and the level of data visibility for the Chinese government.

In an open letter sent to Alphabet and Apple’s respective chief executives Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook, Bennet wrote: "No company subject to CCP (Chinese Communist Party) dictates should have the power to accumulate such extensive data on the American people or curate content to nearly a third of our population. Given these risks, I urge you to remove TikTok from your respective app stores immediately."

The Chinese government currently holds a one per cent stake in TikTok parent company ByteDance’s Chinese subsidiary while also occupying one of three board seats. As such, the Chinese government has a clear influence on TikTok’s Chinese equivalent Douyin, but TikTok itself has always protested its independence from the CCP and has said that it cannot access US user data or manipulate content.

The US campaign against TikTok was most famously led by former president Donald Trump and has been a part of sinophobia-fueled Republican party foreign policy making. Bennet’s letter is noteworthy as he is one the first Democrats to come out against TikTok.

Shou Zi Chew will appear before the US House Energy and Commerce Committee in March.

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