TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced bipartisan grilling Thursday when he appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to address lawmakers’ concerns about the video-sharing app, which has 150 million active users in the United States. Of particular concern to the committee was the company’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, and its alleged ties to the Chinese government.
“We have no confidence that TikTok will ever embrace American values, the values of freedom, human rights and innovation,” said committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. saying in his opening speech. “TikTok has repeatedly chosen the path towards more control, more surveillance and more manipulation. Their platform should be banned.”
currently there are three bills in Congress that could affect American access to TikTok; two would legislate an outright ban on the platform, while the other would give the government the power to ban any technology deemed a risk to national security. The Biden administration reportedly has demanded that ByteDance sell TikTok, threatening an outright ban on the app if the China-based company does not comply. On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce saying that the government would oppose a forced sale.
During the five-hour hearing, Singapore-born Chew, 40, emphasized that there has never been any evidence that the Chinese government has accessed TikTok users’ data. He said that the countries that have banned The application on government devices has been done based on “hypothetical and theoretical risks.” last month, in both the United States and Canada issued orders prohibiting the use of TikTok on government-issued mobile devices.
“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew stated in his written statement.
However, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed doubt about this claim, with many committee members jokingly thanking TikTok’s CEO for inspiring bipartisanship. “There are Republicans and Democrats unified and, if only for a day, we are actually united because we have serious concerns.” saying Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas.
Chew’s preferred response when asked about data privacy was Texas ProjectTikTok’s CEO said no China-based employees would have access to American users’ data once the project was completed, but committee members questioned whether this internal firewall would eliminate their security concerns.
“What you’re saying about the Texas Project just doesn’t pass the smell test.” saying Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn. “My constituents are concerned that TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party are monitoring their data and seeing our own vulnerabilities… What they are doing in Texas is very good, but it is not enough to be convinced that our privacy is not at risk.”
As BuzzFeed News exclusively reported Last year, China-based ByteDance employees accessed non-public data of US TikTok users on several occasions between September 2021 and January 2022. In December, ByteDance said in a statement that an internal investigation revealed that the personal TikTok user data of the BuzzFeed News reporter who broke the story, and several other journalists covering TikTok, had been accessed without authorization by ByteDance employees who were later fired.
When asked during the hearing by Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., whether ByteDance had ever spied on U.S. citizens, Chew responded“I don’t think ‘espionage’ is the right way to describe it.”
