TikTok CEO sits down for a bipartisan barbecue on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON — The CEO of the viral video app Tik Tok arrived on Capitol Hill on Thursday and endured a rare bipartisan grilling from lawmakers weighing whether to ban the app in the US.

Shou Zi Chew testified for the first time in front of lawmakers on the social media giant’s data security and user safety, issues that lawmakers Both parties have warned that it could lead to a ban on the popular app.

“TikTok watches all of us and the Chinese Communist Party uses this as a tool to manipulate the United States as a whole,” said House Energy and Commerce President Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). “Your platform should be banned. I hope you will say anything today to avoid this outcome.

Chew, a 40-year-old native of Singapore, argued that the hugely popular vertical video app should remain accessible to Americans, touting user privacy protections and a firewall against foreign interference.

“There are more than 150 million Americans who love our platform, and we know we have a responsibility to protect them,” Chew told the committee.

Chew used his testimony to distance TikTok from its Chinese origins and argue that the app is deeply American. The platform’s parent company, ByteDance, was founded in 2012 by Chinese businessmen in Beijing, prompting lawmakers to accuse TikTok of giving the Chinese government access to American user data. The Chinese government exercises control over private companies in the country.

Part of Chew’s efforts to Americanize the company includes selling officials a $1.5 billion scheme called Project Texas, which the CEO says routes all US user data to Chew-owned home servers. Oracle software company. All new US user data will be stored within the country starting in October, Chew said, and TikTok began deleting historical user data from non-Oracle servers this month.

“The bottom line is this: US data stored on US soil by a US company supervised by US personnel,” Chew said.

The hearing represented a rare case of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers from both parties criticizing the company. Republicans stressed the need for a ban, while Democrats suggested were in favor of a more comprehensive approach towards protecting consumers, especially younger ones, from the harm of social media.

But Democrats were no less hostile than their Republican counterparts regarding TikTok’s negative effects on the mental health of younger users or the possibility that China could use the app against the US.

“The Chinese communist government could launch disinformation campaigns through TikTok, which is already plagued with misinformation and misinformation, illegal activity, and hate speech,” the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ), said in a statement. your opening statement. .

Lawmakers highlighted ByteDance’s connection to the Chinese government, asking, for example, whether Chew had routine contact with ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo, which Chew said he did.

Tik Tok it’s already forbidden of government-issued devices in several Western countries, including Denmark, Canada, and the European Union. In the US, the federal government, Congress, the military, and more than half of the states have banned the app on official devices due to cybersecurity concerns.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, TikTok bused a group of popular app influencers to Washington, where they made videos on Capitol Hill and lobbied against the ban. At a press conference with influencers, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (DN.Y.) said lawmakers are creating “hysteria” by targeting TikTok when Americans use so many other Chinese-owned apps.

But the company’s recruiting of US users to lobby against a ban, which included a video of Chew himself asking users what they wanted him to tell lawmakers, backfired for committee member Bob Latta (R-Ohio). ).

“Earlier this week, he posted a TikTok video calling on US users to rally in support of his app and oppose potential US government action to ban TikTok in the United States,” Latta said. . “Based on the relationship established between your company and the Chinese Communist Party, it is impossible for me to conclude that the video is any different from the type of propaganda the CCP requires Chinese companies to deliver to their citizens.”