TikTok should have recognized they had been in for a grilling. In anticipation of CEO Shou Zi Chew’s Thursday look earlier than a Home committee, greater than 20 TikTok influencers flocked to the hallowed halls of Congress this week, because the Chinese language firm amped up its lobbying effort towards a proposed ban on the app in the US.
“Your platform needs to be banned,” Home Power and Commerce committee chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers stated on to Chew, in her opening remarks. “I anticipate immediately you may say something to keep away from this final result.”
Nonetheless, Chew tried to assuage considerations. “Whereas the overwhelming majority of individuals on TikTok are over 18, and one in all our quickest rising demographics are individuals over 35, we spent a whole lot of time adopting measures to guard youngsters,” Chew stated, noting “a lot of these measures are firsts for the social media business.” He went on to acknowledge “essential considerations concerning the potential for undesirable international entry to US information, and potential manipulation of the TikTok US ecosystem” that the corporate has heard and “addressed with actual motion.”
Chew’s testimony earlier than the Home committee Thursday is the chief’s first formal look earlier than Congress. “ByteDance isn’t owned or managed by the Chinese language authorities. It is a non-public firm,” he informed lawmakers, including that TikTok is headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore. He stated for the final two years, TikTok has been “constructing what quantities to a “firewall that seals off protected US consumer information from unauthorized international entry.” (Nonetheless, as NPR notes, ByteDance is “topic to Chinese language information request legal guidelines that compel firms handy over data to the federal government about prospects.”) Chew additionally tried to promote officers on a $1.5 billion firm initiative referred to as Venture Texas, a plan that entails storing information associated to US customers on US servers belonging to Oracle. “Our dedication below Venture Texas is for the info of all Individuals to be saved in America, hosted by an American headquartered firm, with entry to the info managed by USDS personnel,” Chew stated in ready remarks offered to the committee. “Underneath this construction, there isn’t any means for the Chinese language authorities to entry it or compel entry to it.” Nonetheless, the plan has not been formally authorized.
TikTok, at the moment owned by the Chinese language firm ByteDance, has change into a key political goal in Washington, with Republicans, who say the corporate is principally a car for the Chinese language authorities to entry Individuals’ information, maybe probably the most vocal on the problem. That messaging was most succinctly put by one Republican Home aide, who referred to the platform as a “Chinese language Communist Social gathering spy app” on Twitter Thursday morning. Democrats, too, nevertheless, have expressed severe concern about information safety dangers. President Joe Biden’s administration has endorsed a bipartisan invoice that might give the Commerce Division extra powers—together with as much as a ban—over foreign-linked software program and electronics producers. Experiences emerged final week that the Biden administration needs TikTok’s Chinese language house owners to promote their stakes within the video-sharing platform.
Notably, only some Democrats joined the TikTokers-turned-lobbyists this week. Amongst those that did was Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who himself posts quick movies on the platform, and informed The New York Instances that the current “hysteria” round TikTok boils all the way down to “xenophobic anti-China rhetoric.” When the TikTok creators weren’t stopping by members’ places of work or discovering the Capitol subway system, creators gathered for a information convention outdoors the Home the place they pushed again on requires a ban. “TikTok has given me, and numerous others like me, the chance to showcase our skills and make a residing doing what we love,” stated influencer Robert Lucas. “So I urge you to think about the influence that banning TikTok might have on individuals like me. It could not solely take away a supply of revenue, however it might additionally stifle creativity and forestall proficient people from sharing their artwork with the world.”
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The Committee on International Funding within the US (or CFIUS) has for 2 years been inspecting TikTok—probably the most downloaded app on the planet final yr—for potential nationwide safety dangers. Each the FBI and Federal Communications Fee have warned that ByteDance might share TikTok consumer information with China’s authoritarian authorities. Twenty-five states have issued some type of restriction of the platform on authorities units.
