Congress questions TikTok about its ties to China

A careful scrutiny to demand responsibility and transparency from Tik Tok: that’s what the legislators of the House of Representatives did to Shou Chew, the executive president of the Asian company, which they accuse of maintaining ties with the Chinese government and causing harmful effects on children and teenagers.

In particular, promoting violent content and inciting suicide, without protecting young people.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, said: “We do not trust that Tik Tok will ever embrace American values, the values ​​of freedom, human rights and innovation. Tik Tok has repeatedly chosen the path of more control, more surveillance, and more manipulation. Your platform should be banned.”

Tik Tok has 150 million users in the United States. They accuse her of sharing data with Beijing through ByteDance, her Chinese parent company.

And to censor the topics not pleasant to the Communist Party. Chew denied such accusations, raised by both Republicans and Democrats: “We do not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government.

The app has become a battleground in the midst of a US-China tech cold war, with US threats to ban TikTok reminiscent of how Beijing has long blocked many US platforms, Facebook for example.

Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democratic legislator, told Chew: “You’re trying to give the impression that you’re a good actor. But the compromises that we would seek to achieve those goals are not being made today. They just aren’t being done. You will continue to collect data. You’re going to keep selling data, you’re going to keep doing all these things, and you’re still going to be under the aegis of the Communist Party.”

China said it would oppose US efforts to force the sale of TikTok, and publicly rebuked the Biden administration’s stance against Chinese ownership of the app.

That limits President Joe Biden’s options: ban the application in the country or accept that the company has the data of Americans stored on servers in Texas and monitored by companies in the United States.

It has been a very long hearing where we have seen Democrats and Republicans unusually agree: Tik Tok, according to them, is a threat to the security of the United States. In fact, there are already three bills that could make life impossible for Tik Tok in the United States. Furthermore, Chew’s words failed to reassure and allay lawmakers’ concerns.

Shou Chew, CEO of Tik Tok, promised: “Number one, we will keep safety, particularly for teens, a top priority for us. Number two, we will firewall US data from unwanted foreign access. Number three, TikTok will continue to be a place for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government.”

The national security threat posed by TikTok so far is more potential than proven: US officials have not declassified any evidence that there is a current risk of TikTok handing over user data to the Chinese government. Instead, lawmakers and intelligence officials point to potential problems, given Beijing’s tight control over its economy and individual companies.