Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok, is getting ready to inform Congress that there are numerous “misconceptions” about the app and that banning it will hurt the American economy. Additionally, he intends to inform Congressmen that worries about ByteDance’s parent firm and its connections to China are unwarranted.
Before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on TikTok on Thursday, Chew makes the following clear: “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country.” The hearing, which will be Chew’s first appearance before Congress, takes place just as the company’s stakes are at an all-time high.
US officials recently warned the business that TikTok would be outlawed in the US if ByteDance doesn’t cut its ties to the business. And lawmakers from both parties have backed legislation that would give President Joe Biden and other members of his administration the authority to outlaw the app.
Chew’s written testimony mostly reiterates points TikTok has made in discussions for years. He discusses Project Texas, TikTok’s $1 billion endeavour to secure the data of US users, as well as the app’s safety measures, notably those targeted at teenagers. We started the process of erasing past protected U.S. user data kept on non-Oracle systems earlier this month, and we anticipate finishing it later this year, according to Chew. The Chinese government cannot access it or force access to it under this framework.
The allegation that four former ByteDance employees utilised TikTok to access the data of US journalists is also discussed in Chew’s written evidence. The event, which increased legislators’ worries about TikTok, is said to have sparked a DoJ probe into the business. Chew stated, “I condemn this misbehaviour in the strongest terms possible. The corporation is working with an outside legal firm to conduct an inquiry.
But Chew’s remarks regarding China stand out the most. He declares it to be “emphatically untrue” that TikTok is “beholden to the Chinese government” and calls ByteDance a “global enterprise” that was “founded by Chinese entrepreneurs.”
Despite these promises, lawmakers will probably question Chew extensively over TikTok’s connections to ByteDance and China, as well as whether the business can be relied upon to secure US users. During a recent hearing, lawmakers questioned TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas about the business’s staff headquartered in China but were angered by her argument that ByteDance was not a Chinese company. The future of TikTok in the US may be directly impacted by Chew’s responses to similar queries.
