TikTok CEO testifies before hostile US lawmakers threatening ban

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before a hostile House of Representatives committee as lawmakers discuss a ban on the popular video sharing app.

Representatives from both parties on the House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled the executive on privacy issues, national security concerns, the company’s connections to China, and the harm the app has caused children and teenagers in the US.

‘Mr Chew, you are here because the American people need the truth about the threat TikTok poses to our national and personal security,’ committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said in her opening statement. ‘TikTok has repeatedly chosen a path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation.’

In his response, Chew tried to assure officials and the American public that the app, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, is fixing security flaws that allowed international actors to access the data of American users.

‘We will firewall protect the US data from unwanted foreign access,’ Chew assured the committee.

He also emphasized the company’s ongoing Project Texas, a $1.5billion project with software giant Oracle which aims to move all US user data to facilities within the country.

‘American data is stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel,’ Chew repeated multiple times over the course of the tense hearing.

Since October, all new data collected on American users has been stored in these US servers. However, the CEO did admit that some legacy data was still stored in facilities that could be accessed by ByteDance engineers.

Chew, the former CFO of ByteDance, also tried to downplay TikTok’s connection to the China, and denied connections to the country’s government and ruling Chinese Communist Party.

‘Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,’ Chew said. ‘ByteDance has five board members, and three of them are American.’

Other representatives focused on the content the app has featured. Rep Gus Bilirakis of Florida criticized the algorithm the app uses for its ‘For You’ page, which he says contributed to the death of a 16-year-old who was served up content encouraging him to take his own life.

Chew repeatedly touted the company’s more recent efforts to moderate content being delivered to children, including a new restriction against viewing more than 60 minutes of content for users under age 16.

Another congresswoman, Rep Kat Cammack of Florida, played a video showing violent threats to the days proceedings.

The video showed a rendering of a handgun firing a full clip of ammunition with the caption: ‘me asf at the House Energy and Commerce Committtee on 03/23/2023.’ It also tagged the name of Rep McMorris Rodgers, the chair of the committee.

According to Cammack, the video had been viewable for the next 41 days leading up to the hearing.

‘Your own community guidelines state: “we do not allow people to use our platform to threaten or incite violence,”‘ Cammack said. ‘You expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data security of 150million Americans, when you can’t even protect the people in this room?’

Chew was not given a chance to respond to the video.

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