WASHINGTON: A just about six-hour grilling of TikTookay’s CEO via lawmakers introduced the platform’s 150 million US customers no nearer to a solution as as to whether the app shall be wiped from their gadgets.
US lawmakers on Thursday pressed Shou Zi Chew over knowledge safety and damaging content material, responding skeptically all over a disturbing committee listening to to his assurances that the massively widespread video-sharing app prioritizes person protection and must now not be banned because of its Chinese connections.
In a bipartisan effort to rein within the energy of a significant social media platform, Republican and Democratic lawmakers hurled questions about a bunch of subjects, together with TikTookay’s content material moderation practices, how the corporate plans to protected American knowledge from Beijing, and its spying on newshounds. .
Chew spent many of the listening to making an attempt to chase away assertions that TikTookay, or its Chinese guardian corporate, ByteDance, are equipment of the Chinese govt. But he failed to reply to uncomfortable questions on human rights abuses dedicated via China towards the Uyghurs, and gave the impression stunned via a TikTookay video displayed via a lawmaker that advocated for violence towards the House committee preserving the listening to.
The uncommon public look via the 40-year-old Singapore local comes at a a very powerful time for the corporate. TikTookay has ballooned its American person base to 150 million in a couple of quick years, however its expanding dominance is being threatened via a possible national ban in the United States and rising fears amongst officers about protective person knowledge from China’s communist govt.
There’s additionally symbolism for lawmakers in taking up TikTookay, which has been swept up in a much broader geopolitical fight between Beijing and Washington over industry and generation, in addition to heightened tensions because of contemporary balloon politics and China’s dating with Russia.
“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, a Republican, said in her opening statement.
Chew told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that TikTok prioritizes the safety of its young users and denied it’s a national security risk. He reiterated the company’s plan to protect US user data by storing it on servers maintained and owned by the software giant Oracle.
“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.
Nevertheless, the company has been dogged by claims that its Chinese ownership means user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government or that it could be used to promote narratives favorable to the country’s communist leaders.
In 2019, the Guardian reported that TikTok was instructing its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square and included images unfavorable to the Chinese government. The platform says it has since changed its moderation practices.
Concerns about the platform increased when ByteDance admitted in December that it fired four employees who accessed data on two journalists, and people connected to them, last summer while attempting to uncover the source of a leaked report about the company.
Aware of its weakness, TikTok has been trying to distance itself from its Chinese origins, saying 60% of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors such as the Carlyle Group.
“Ownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns,” Chew said.
But for many others, it is. The Biden administration has reportedly demanded TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stakes in the company to avoid a nationwide ban. China has said it would oppose those attempts. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at a separate committee hearing Thursday that he believes TikTok is a security threat, and “should be ended one way or another.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “everyone was watching” Thursday’s TikTok hearing at the White House. But she declined to comment on specific actions the administration could take to address its TikTok concerns.
In one of the most dramatic moments of the hearing, Republican Rep. Kat Cammack played a TikTok video showing a shooting gun with a caption that included the House committee, with the exact date before it was formally announced.
“You expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data security, privacy and security of 150 million Americans where you can’t even protect the people in this room,” Cammack stated.
TikTookay stated the corporate on Thursday got rid of the video and banned the account that posted it.
Concerns about what sort of content material Americans come across on-line, or how their knowledge is accrued via generation firms, is not new. Congress has been in need of to curtail the volume of knowledge tech firms gather on customers via a countrywide privateness regulation, however the ones efforts have failed.
At a information convention on Wednesday, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a New York Democrat and probably the most few allies TikTookay reputedly has at the Hill, stated lawmakers considering protective customers mustn’t goal TikTookay, however should as a substitute center of attention on a countrywide regulation that may offer protection to person knowledge throughout all social media platforms. . Chew additionally famous the failure of US social media firms to deal with the very issues for which TikTookay used to be being criticized.
“American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security,” he stated. “Look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, only one instance.”
Committee members also showed a host of TikTok videos that encouraged users to harm themselves and commit suicide. Many questioned why the platform’s Chinese counterpart, Douyin, does not carry the same potentially dangerous content as the American product.
Chew replied that it depends on the laws of the country where the app is operating. He said the company has about 40,000 moderators that track harmful content and an algorithm that flags material.
Wealth management firm Wedbush described the hearing as a “crisis” for TikTok that made a ban more likely if it doesn’t separate from its Chinese parent. Emile El Nems, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said a ban would benefit TikTok rivals YouTube, Instagram and Snap, “most likely leading to upper earnings proportion of the entire promoting pockets.”
To avoid a ban, TikTok has been trying to sell officials on a $1.5 billion plan, Project Texas, which routes all US user data to servers owned and maintained by the software giant Oracle.
As of October, all new US user data was being stored inside the country. The company started deleting all historical US user data from non-Oracle servers this month, in a process expected to be completed this year, Chew said.
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw noted that regardless of what the company does to assure lawmakers it will protect US user data, the Chinese government can still have significant influence over its parent company and ask it to turn over data through its national security laws.
Congress, the White House, US armed forces and more than half of US states have already banned the use of the app from official devices. Similar bans have been imposed in other countries including Denmark, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, as well as the European Union.
A complete TikTok ban in the US would risk political and popular backlash from its young user base and civil liberties groups.
David Kennedy, a former government intelligence officer who runs the cybersecurity company TrustedSec, said he agrees with restricting TikTok access on government-issued phones but that a nationwide ban might be too extreme.
“We have Tesla in China, we have Microsoft in China, we have Apple in China. Are they going to start banning us now?” Kennedy stated. “It could escalate very quickly.”
US lawmakers on Thursday pressed Shou Zi Chew over knowledge safety and damaging content material, responding skeptically all over a disturbing committee listening to to his assurances that the massively widespread video-sharing app prioritizes person protection and must now not be banned because of its Chinese connections.
In a bipartisan effort to rein within the energy of a significant social media platform, Republican and Democratic lawmakers hurled questions about a bunch of subjects, together with TikTookay’s content material moderation practices, how the corporate plans to protected American knowledge from Beijing, and its spying on newshounds. .
Chew spent many of the listening to making an attempt to chase away assertions that TikTookay, or its Chinese guardian corporate, ByteDance, are equipment of the Chinese govt. But he failed to reply to uncomfortable questions on human rights abuses dedicated via China towards the Uyghurs, and gave the impression stunned via a TikTookay video displayed via a lawmaker that advocated for violence towards the House committee preserving the listening to.
The uncommon public look via the 40-year-old Singapore local comes at a a very powerful time for the corporate. TikTookay has ballooned its American person base to 150 million in a couple of quick years, however its expanding dominance is being threatened via a possible national ban in the United States and rising fears amongst officers about protective person knowledge from China’s communist govt.
There’s additionally symbolism for lawmakers in taking up TikTookay, which has been swept up in a much broader geopolitical fight between Beijing and Washington over industry and generation, in addition to heightened tensions because of contemporary balloon politics and China’s dating with Russia.
“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, a Republican, said in her opening statement.
Chew told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that TikTok prioritizes the safety of its young users and denied it’s a national security risk. He reiterated the company’s plan to protect US user data by storing it on servers maintained and owned by the software giant Oracle.
“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.
Nevertheless, the company has been dogged by claims that its Chinese ownership means user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government or that it could be used to promote narratives favorable to the country’s communist leaders.
In 2019, the Guardian reported that TikTok was instructing its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square and included images unfavorable to the Chinese government. The platform says it has since changed its moderation practices.
Concerns about the platform increased when ByteDance admitted in December that it fired four employees who accessed data on two journalists, and people connected to them, last summer while attempting to uncover the source of a leaked report about the company.
Aware of its weakness, TikTok has been trying to distance itself from its Chinese origins, saying 60% of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors such as the Carlyle Group.
“Ownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns,” Chew said.
But for many others, it is. The Biden administration has reportedly demanded TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stakes in the company to avoid a nationwide ban. China has said it would oppose those attempts. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at a separate committee hearing Thursday that he believes TikTok is a security threat, and “should be ended one way or another.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “everyone was watching” Thursday’s TikTok hearing at the White House. But she declined to comment on specific actions the administration could take to address its TikTok concerns.
In one of the most dramatic moments of the hearing, Republican Rep. Kat Cammack played a TikTok video showing a shooting gun with a caption that included the House committee, with the exact date before it was formally announced.
“You expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data security, privacy and security of 150 million Americans where you can’t even protect the people in this room,” Cammack stated.
TikTookay stated the corporate on Thursday got rid of the video and banned the account that posted it.
Concerns about what sort of content material Americans come across on-line, or how their knowledge is accrued via generation firms, is not new. Congress has been in need of to curtail the volume of knowledge tech firms gather on customers via a countrywide privateness regulation, however the ones efforts have failed.
At a information convention on Wednesday, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a New York Democrat and probably the most few allies TikTookay reputedly has at the Hill, stated lawmakers considering protective customers mustn’t goal TikTookay, however should as a substitute center of attention on a countrywide regulation that may offer protection to person knowledge throughout all social media platforms. . Chew additionally famous the failure of US social media firms to deal with the very issues for which TikTookay used to be being criticized.
“American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security,” he stated. “Look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, only one instance.”
Committee members also showed a host of TikTok videos that encouraged users to harm themselves and commit suicide. Many questioned why the platform’s Chinese counterpart, Douyin, does not carry the same potentially dangerous content as the American product.
Chew replied that it depends on the laws of the country where the app is operating. He said the company has about 40,000 moderators that track harmful content and an algorithm that flags material.
Wealth management firm Wedbush described the hearing as a “crisis” for TikTok that made a ban more likely if it doesn’t separate from its Chinese parent. Emile El Nems, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said a ban would benefit TikTok rivals YouTube, Instagram and Snap, “most likely leading to upper earnings proportion of the entire promoting pockets.”
To avoid a ban, TikTok has been trying to sell officials on a $1.5 billion plan, Project Texas, which routes all US user data to servers owned and maintained by the software giant Oracle.
As of October, all new US user data was being stored inside the country. The company started deleting all historical US user data from non-Oracle servers this month, in a process expected to be completed this year, Chew said.
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw noted that regardless of what the company does to assure lawmakers it will protect US user data, the Chinese government can still have significant influence over its parent company and ask it to turn over data through its national security laws.
Congress, the White House, US armed forces and more than half of US states have already banned the use of the app from official devices. Similar bans have been imposed in other countries including Denmark, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, as well as the European Union.
A complete TikTok ban in the US would risk political and popular backlash from its young user base and civil liberties groups.
David Kennedy, a former government intelligence officer who runs the cybersecurity company TrustedSec, said he agrees with restricting TikTok access on government-issued phones but that a nationwide ban might be too extreme.
“We have Tesla in China, we have Microsoft in China, we have Apple in China. Are they going to start banning us now?” Kennedy stated. “It could escalate very quickly.”