The presidential campaign of Donald Trump rolled out Facebook advertisements that call for support in banning video-sharing app TikTok, which has been under scrutiny over security issues.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the government is weighing a ban on Chinese social media apps such as TikTok, over security concerns that have plagued the app. Trump’s campaign is apparently urging its supporters to join the cause.

The Facebook ads, with images that claim “TikTok is spying on you,” were shared on Twitter by ABC News’ Will Steakin and New York Times’ Taylor Lorenz.

The ads link to a survey asking whether TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance, should be banned in the United States. They also ask for respondents’ names and contact details.

“TikTok is spying on you,” claimed one ad. “TikTok has been caught red handed by monitoring what is on your phone’s clipboard,” it said. TikTok is facing scrutiny in Washington over concerns that China could force the company to turn over its user data. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States was “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok. India banned TikTok and other Chinese apps in June.

TikTok has said that it has never provided user data to China and that it would not do so if asked, and a spokeswoman told Reuters that the company has “no higher priority than promoting a safe app experience that protects our users’ privacy.” Last month, when Apple released to developers a test version of its iOS operating system with new privacy features, developers showed images of TikTok’s app triggering notifications that it was copying data from users’ clipboards, where data is temporarily stored while copying and pasting from one app to another.

Source- Reuters