TikTok chief operating officer Shou Zi Chew testified in a combative earreach before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday . As expected , Congress turn tail Chew through the gauntlet , but the hearing included a phone number of sensational moments . Among them , one congresswoman pointed out a TikTok video recording of a torpedo imperil the committee ’s lives , which the company promptly removed while the hearing was still pop off . Chew also tacitly admitted the company sell drug user data .
Chew desperately attempted to present the app as a safeand massively popular “ sunny box of the cyberspace ” and not a surreptitious surveillance tool for the Chinese regime . The company is locked in a conflict with the US government , render to prevent a nationwide ban on the country ’s most democratic unforesightful - form video app .
Lawmakers from both sides of the political spectrum handle Chew like a punching udder , allowing the chief executive officer few opportunities to give consummate answers and using the hearing as a fomite to voice a bevy of ruffianly - on - China blather .
Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Staff (Getty Images)
lawgiver ’ responses to Chew ’s pitch during the hearing could sic the precedent for the U.S. governance deals not just with TikTok , but really any major Taiwanese mark trying to weave itself into the cloth of Americans ’ daily lives . The prospects for those apps do n’t seem good .
TikTok removed threatening video posted during hearing
Florida Rep. Kat Cammack take aback the room , and evidently TikTok , during the earshot by sharing a TikTok video depicting a gun being load with the caption , “ me as f at the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23 . ” The video , which Cammack account as a well-defined threat against the committee phallus , had been online for 41 daylight . TikTok later on confirmed it removed the video from the app espouse the representative ’s public disclosure .
“ You expect us to consider that you are subject of observe the datum security department , privacy and security of 150 million Americans where you ca n’t even protect the people in this room , ” Cammack say .
“ It pass to show the tremendous challenge that we have to make indisputable that , although the vast majority of the user arrive for a good experience , we need to make certain that sorry player do n’t post violations , ” Chew said .
TikTok’s CEO dodged questions about selling user data
In one interchange , Chew avoided lineal question about whether TikTok sell the data it call for .
“ I consider we do not trade datum to any data point brokers , ” Chew said in response to a question from Rep. Frank Pallone . “ I did n’t ask you about data factor , ” Pallone said . “ Do you betray it to anyone ? ”
“ Congressman , I actually am in living of some rules … ” Chew responded before another interruption from Pallone . “ I did n’t call for you about rules , I asked you whether the company TikTok would commit to not sell data to anyone . ”
“ I can get back to you on the details , ” Chew order .
While many company trade information , most major tech chopine do n’t , as it would be too worthful to their contender . There ’s more money to be made by hoard personal info . DuringMark Zuckerberg ’s own congressional testimonyin 2019 , the CEO stressed that selling datum is n’t part of Meta ’s business . “ We do n’t sell people ’s data , even though it ’s often reported that we do . ” Google hit similar promise .
“ As we state in our privacy policy , we do not sell personal information , ” TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said in an electronic mail . TikTok said that the definition of the word sell is up for debate , as California ’s seclusion police force defines any transmission of information for ad function as a “ sales agreement . ” The ship’s company clarified that it does use data point for targeted advertising , but does not interchange data for money .
TikTok harvests a wide variety of information , and not just from inside the app . Earlier this year , a Gizmodo report found thatmore than 28,000 apps send data point to TikTok . The company also encounter data from websites across the internet including government websites and sensitive organizations such as pharmacy and Planned Parenthood .
TikTok’s CEO was grilled over Chinese employees’ access of US data
Chew include to multiple lawgiver Thursday that mastermind at Beijing - based ByteDance , TikTok ’s parent caller , do presently have access code to US exploiter data “ on an as - required basis . ” The CEO quickly contribute that would no longer be the case once the ship’s company ’s US data routing program called “ Project Texas ” is double-dyed . The admission from the chief executive officer confirms earlier report from BuzzFeed News claiming China - based ByteDance employees repeatedly access datum about US TikTok users . Chew refuted lawmakers ’ accusations , however , that TikTok moderates content on behalf of the Formosan communist political party .
“ We do not remove or boost mental object at the behest of the Chinese politics . ”
Chew faced fast-growing , often , unproductive line of products of questioning from lawmakers who frequently asked the CEO to provide yes or no answers to complex technical doubtfulness . Lawmakers , particularly from the GOP side , expressed Erinyes when Chew answered vaguely and at time involve that he could be commove with Union crimes for lie under curse word . In one heated exchange , Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers asked Chew whether or not TikTok remove capacity related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre . When Chew pronounce that cognitive content was available on the platform , Rodgers expressed defeat and warn Chew against lie under oath .
“ I will cue you that making false or shoddy statements to Congress is a federal crime , ” Rodgers aver .
The CEO’s pitch: TikTok is safer than other apps, and Americans need it
The relatively reclusive chief executive officer ’s depiction of TikTok residue on three core factor : product refuge , popularity , and data security . On the first of those matter , Chew tried to juxtapose TikTok ’s safety practice against the horrific privacy history of other major social media products like Facebook and Instagram .
TikTok is acutely mindful of its popularity among younger users , and Chew highlighted the numerous policies over the years get at circumscribe CRT screen time for teens . Chew pointed to some of those efforts like blocking users under the age of 16 from sending DMs and rolling out one - time of day scrolling demarcation line for user under 18 , as a way to push back against lawmakers ’ accusations that the app is harmful and even habit-forming to young exploiter . In the past , Republican lawmakers have compared TikTok to “ digital fentanyl , ” or more of late ascocaine “ disguise as confect . ”
“ We establish bully production with a rubber - by - design mentality , even if those features limit our monetization opportunity , ” Chew say during his opening assertion . “ Many of these measure visit confinement not partake in by other platforms . ”
What did TikTok’s CEO say to Congress?
Chew amplified new intimate drug user datum to contend TikTok in the US , is merely too heavy to better up and that doing so could extinguish thousands of small business . The chief executive officer distinguish lawgiver the app has amassed 150 million monthly active users , high than the 100 million design newsman just two years ago . Those figure do n’t describe for users under the long time of 13 , meaning TikTok ’s total guess substance abuser base is even higher . Chew added that around 5 million business use TikTok to reach their client .
“ Although some people may still cerebrate of TikTok as a trip the light fantastic toe app for teenagers , the reality is that our weapons platform and our biotic community have become so much more for so many , ” Chew said .
That head was buttress Wednesday evening by a group of around 30 Tikok continent creators who gather outside the national ’s capital protesting national bean and visit on lawmaker to “ Keep TikTok . ”
“ I use TikTok to portion out a honey of my kinsperson and our journeying through foster care and adoption , and through that I ’ve been able to create a community of people from all over the Earth , ” TikTok creator Jason Linton said during the rally , according toNBC News . “ I ’m asking our politicians : Do n’t take aside the community that we ’ve built . ”
Can China extract datafrom TikTok?
Then there ’s the Chinese government interrogation , which dominated much of the listening . lawgiver and U.S. intelligence delegacy have long claimed — without leave any grounds — that TikTok ’s Chinese possession means Communist official pink into the app and habituate it as a surveillance shaft to work against U.S. interests . Chew dismissed this point .
“ rent me tell this unambiguously : ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other state , ” he said .
To that death , Chew tried to alleviate lawgiver ’ concerns by speak at length of the group ’ US datum routing program called “ Project Texas ” which promises to silo its American operation into a subsidiary company called TikTok US Data Security , whose leadership would demand American administration approval .
Chew faces an uphill engagement . Lawmakers from both sides of the political gangway have ratcheted up calls for a nationalTikTok banin recent weeks . The app is alreadybanned on all Union machine in the US , and many other area are following suit . The Biden administration , long tacit on where it support on TikTok , last calendar week told its Chinese owners to spin off their part of the platform or face a proscription .
That legislative insistency , combined with a oecumenical public increasingly divided over a TikTok ban , make this just about the forged potential moment for Chew to make his guinea pig to Congress .
“ The temperature is so high properly now , ” Center for Strategic and International Studies Director of Strategic Technologies Jim Lewis said in a recentinterviewwith The Washington Post , “ I would not choose this week to go to the Hill unless you have a decease wish . ”
Lawmakers’ minds seem already made up on TikTok
Chew , fit in toThe Washington Post , has reportedly spent hebdomad meet severally with each fellow member of the Energy and Commerce citizens committee to take heed out their concerns and hear to exculpate up , “ misunderstandings . ” Chew took over as TikTok CEO in 2021 after wait on as chief executive of Chinese - owned Xaomi , where he oversaw the company’s2018 IPO .
“ We hear general unrelated fears , analogies , associations that do n’t make mother wit , ” Chew told the Post . “ And for those , I recall the right approach is to verify that we reach out to understand . ”
Unfortunately , those call option for intellect appear vain . During the hearing , it was cleared that many lawmaker in Congress , have their thinker made up and are unlikely to be persuaded by Chew ’s arguments .
“ While I appreciate Mr. Chew ’s willingness to resolve questions before Congress , TikTok ’s lack of transparency , repeat puzzlement and misstatements of fact have seriously undermined the credibility of any statements by TikTok employees , include Mr. Chew , ” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said in astatementto Politico . Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley , who has also introduced his own legislation calling for a national ban , said he does n’t need any more data on the issue .
“ I do n’t think TikTok ’s chief operating officer will be keen to answer questions about the app ’s information collection or its link to the CCP , ” he tell Politico .
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