TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew confronted a bipartisan grilling on Thursday as he appeared earlier than the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee to deal with lawmakers’ issues concerning the video sharing app, which has 150 million energetic customers within the US. Of explicit concern to the committee was the corporate’s China-based dad or mum firm, ByteDance, and its suspected ties to the Chinese language authorities.
“We don’t belief TikTok will ever embrace American values, values for freedom, human rights, and innovation,” committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington, stated in her opening assertion. “TikTok has repeatedly chosen the trail for extra management, extra surveillance, and extra manipulation. Your platform needs to be banned.”
There are at present three payments in Congress that might have an effect on American entry to TikTok; two would legislate an outright ban of the platform, whereas the opposite would give the federal government the facility to ban any applied sciences which might be deemed a nationwide safety threat. The Biden administration reportedly has demanded that ByteDance promote TikTok, threatening a complete ban on the app if the China-based firm fails to conform. On Thursday, a Chinese language commerce ministry spokesperson stated that the federal government would oppose a compelled sale.
Through the five-hour listening to, the Singapore-born Chew, 40, emphasised that there has by no means been any proof of the Chinese language authorities accessing TikTok consumer knowledge. He stated that international locations which have banned the app on authorities gadgets have finished so based mostly on “hypothetical and theoretical dangers.” Final month, each the US and Canada issued orders banning using TikTok on government-issued cell gadgets.
“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance will not be an agent of China or another nation,” Chew declared in his written assertion.
Nevertheless, lawmakers from either side of the aisle expressed doubts about this declare, and plenty of committee members jokingly thanked the TikTok CEO for uplifting bipartisanship. “You may have unified Republicans and Democrats and, if just for a day, we’re truly unified as a result of we now have severe issues,” stated Rep. August Pfluger, a Republican from Texas.
Chew’s go-to reply when questioned about knowledge privateness was Challenge Texas, the platform’s ongoing operation to maneuver details about its American customers to US-based servers. The TikTok CEO stated that no China-based workers would have entry to American consumer knowledge as soon as the undertaking was accomplished, however committee members questioned whether or not this inside firewall would get rid of their safety issues.
“What you’re saying about Challenge Texas simply doesn’t move the odor check,” stated Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat from Minnesota. “My constituents are involved that TikTok and the Chinese language Communist Social gathering are controlling their knowledge and seeing our personal vulnerabilities. … What you’re doing down in Texas is all nicely and good, however it isn’t sufficient to be satisfied that our privateness will not be in danger.”
As BuzzFeed Information solely reported final yr, China-based ByteDance workers accessed nonpublic US TikTok consumer knowledge on a number of events between September 2021 and January 2022. In December, ByteDance stated in a assertion that an inside investigation revealed that private TikTok consumer knowledge of the BuzzFeed Information reporter who broke the story — and several other different journalists who cowl TikTok — had been accessed with out authorization by ByteDance workers who had been then fired.
When requested by Rep. Neal Dunn, a Republican from Florida, throughout the listening to if ByteDance had ever spied on Americans, Chew responded, “I don’t suppose that ‘spying’ is the appropriate strategy to describe it.”
