WASHINGTON — The CEO of the viral video app TikTok got here to Capitol Hill Thursday and endured a uncommon bipartisan grilling from lawmakers weighing whether or not to ban the app within the U.S.
Shou Zi Chew testified for the primary time in entrance of lawmakers on the social media big’s information safety and consumer security — points that lawmakers from each events have warned might result in a ban on the favored app.
“TikTok surveils us all and the Chinese language Communist Occasion makes use of this as a device to govern America as an entire,” Home Vitality and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) mentioned. “Your platform ought to be banned. I count on at present you’ll say something to keep away from this final result.”
Chew, a 40-year-old Singapore native, argued the extremely common vertical video app ought to stay accessible to People, touting consumer privateness protections and a firewall towards overseas interference.
“There are greater than 150 million People who love our platform, and we all know now we have a duty to guard them,” Chew advised the committee.
Chew used his testimony to distance TikTok from its Chinese language origins and argue that the app is deeply American. The platform’s father or mother firm, ByteDance, was based in 2012 by Chinese language entrepreneurs in Beijing, main lawmakers to accuse TikTok of giving the Chinese language authorities entry to U.S. consumer information.
A part of Chew’s efforts to Americanize the corporate consists of promoting officers on a $1.5 billion plan known as Challenge Texas, which the CEO mentioned routes all consumer information within the U.S. to home servers owned by software program firm Oracle. All new U.S. consumer information is being saved contained in the nation as of October, Chew mentioned, and TikTok started deleting historic consumer information from non-Oracle servers this month.
“The underside line is that this: American information saved on American soil by an American firm overseen by American personnel,” Chew mentioned.
Olivier Douliery/AFP through Getty Photos
The listening to represented a uncommon occasion of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers from each events blasting the corporate. Republicans emphasised the necessity for a ban, whereas Democrats prompt they favored a extra complete method towards defending customers, particularly youthful ones, from social media hurt.
However Democrats had been no much less hostile than their Republican counterparts with regard to TikTok’s dangerous results on youthful customers’ psychological well being or the likelihood China might wield the app towards the U.S.
“Disinformation campaigns might be launched by the Chinese language Communist authorities via TikTok, which has already turn into rife with misinformation and disinformation, unlawful actions, and hate speech,” the panel’s high Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone (N.J.), mentioned in his opening assertion.
Lawmakers highlighted ByteDance’s connection to the Chinese language authorities, asking, as an illustration, whether or not Chew had routine contact with ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo, which Chew mentioned he did.
TikTok is already banned from government-issued units in a number of Western nations, together with Denmark, Canada and the European Union. Within the U.S., the app is banned from official units by the federal authorities, Congress, the navy and over half the states attributable to cybersecurity considerations.
Forward of Thursday’s listening to, TikTok bused a cadre of the app’s common influencers to Washington, the place they made movies within the Capitol and lobbied towards a ban. In a press convention with the influencers, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) mentioned lawmakers are creating “hysteria” by concentrating on TikTok when People use many different Chinese language-owned functions.
However the firm’s recruitment of American customers to foyer towards a ban — which included a video of Chew himself asking customers what they needed him to inform lawmakers — backfired with committee member Bob Latta (R-Ohio).
“Earlier this week, you posted a TikTok video asking American customers to mobilize in assist of your app and oppose the potential U.S. authorities motion to ban TikTok from america,” Latta mentioned. “Based mostly on the established relationship between your organization and the Chinese language Communist Occasion, it’s not possible for me to conclude that the video is something totally different than the kind of propaganda that the CCP requires Chinese language firms to push on its residents.”