TikTok in all likelihood is going to get banned following the US Congressional hearing. CEO Shou Zi Chew, as prepared as he was had a rough hearing, during which, he dodged a number of important questions on US user’s data and Chinese spying.
As the Biden administration intensifies its threats against TikTok, the company’s CEO appeared before Congress for the first time on Thursday. Given the US government’s assertive recent stance, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was bound for a harsh turn in front of the government’s large, glaring lights — and that’s exactly what happened over the course of the five-hour meeting.
Chew promised in his introductory remarks that the business would protect minors, strengthen its privacy and security policies, and prevent “unauthorized foreign access” to U.S. user data.
‘ByteDance not a Chinese agent’ says Chew“… I understand that there are concerns based on the mistaken belief that TikTok’s corporate structure makes it beholden to the Chinese government or that it shares information about US users with the Chinese government,” Chew said. “This is categorically false.”
TikTok, according to Chew, has never shared info on US users with the Chinese government and has never gotten a request to do so. Chew argued that if China did seek access to data on Americans, the firm would refuse.
“Let me state unequivocally: ByteDance is not a Chinese or any other country’s agent,” Chew said.
As the meeting progressed, legislators from both parties pushed Chew on the company’s relationship with China, its failure to regulate troubling material, and its plans to establish confidence in the United States, its largest market.
Faced with a deluge of questions, some critical and others strange, TikTok took a leaf from the standard tech hearing script written in recent years by companies such as Meta and Google. While Chew came across as comfortable and friendly — more so than some U.S. tech execs — he overstated some of the company’s accomplishments and repeatedly avoided meaningful responses on difficult topics.
Chew’s China connectionSeveral representatives discussed TikTok’s effect on young consumers. Rep. John Sarbanes brought the company’s boasts about its protections against social media addiction back to reality after Chew praised the app’s 60-minute viewing restriction for teenagers.
“My understanding is that if teens want to, they can easily bypass the notification and continue using the app,” Sarbanes said. “I mean, let’s face it, our teens are smarter than we are by half and they know how to use technology and they can get around these limits if they want to.”
Chew offered some insights into TikTok-China connections after being called “evasive” by several committee members during his statement, verifying that he directly answers to China-owned ByteDance’s CEO Liang Rubo and affirming that he personally holds shares in ByteDance. Although Chew stated that ByteDance does not require workers to reveal this information, he also appeared to concur that many ByteDance employees are likely CCP members.
Things got a little personal for Chew. When members of Congress pressed Chew, who resides in Singapore rather than China, to reveal his own ties to the CCP, he repeatedly evaded the questions. He told the committee that his evidence would be limited to TikTok. He also repeatedly refused to answer to several committee members who asked if he condemned Chinese human rights violations against the Uyghurs, a Turkish ethnic group in China.
ByteDance’s divestment of TikTok and Project TexasTikTok has long resisted privacy worries, claiming that the company’s American activities are isolated from its Beijing-based leadership — and from China itself. Earlier this month, it was reported that the US government is attempting to compel ByteDance to sell TikTok, threatening a nationwide ban if the business does not cooperate.
TikTok reacted by referring to its recent self-regulation effort, dubbed Project Texas. The ad is part of TikTok’s continuing charm offensive in the United States, which aims to portray the company’s operations in the country as transparent and comes with approximately $1.5 billion in infrastructure expenditure and corporate reorganisation. The notion is that TikTok can create a barrier between the company’s American operations and its Chinese control, thereby appeasing both parties.
The United States does not appear to be backing down, but it is far from obvious that it is in a position to carry out recent warnings. During the Trump administration, the White House tried a similar manoeuvre, but it failed before being taken up by the Biden administration in an uncommon display of policy continuity between the two. Former President Trump’s threats against TikTok ultimately culminated in a plot to compel ByteDance to sell its assets in the United States to Oracle in late 2020. TikTok also turned down an acquisition bid from Microsoft at the time, but the agreement with Oracle also fell through.
Oracle never purchased the business, but it is still in the running. TikTok later partnered with Oracle to move US data to US-based servers and run audits of its algorithms and content moderation systems — an odd move and an odd partner to do it with, given Oracle co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison’s involvement in the campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 US presidential election.
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