TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew marked on Thursday his first ever appearance before the US lawmakers as the popular short-video platform faces sustained calls for a nationwide ban over data security and privacy concerns.
The high-profile congressional hearing saw Chew being grilled by the lawmakers as they questioned him about TikTok’s parent company ByteDance’s relations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The chief was also questioned over TikTok’s efforts with regard to the mental wellbeing of its young users.
TikTok, which now has over 150 million users in the US, has drawn intense regulatory scrutiny over its potential ties with the Chinese government, fuelling national security concerns in the federal ranks. A large number of lawmakers believe that TikTok might be forced into handing over sensitive data of US citizens to the Chinese government under the country’s strict laws. The calls for ban gained considerable momentum after ByteDance confirmed last year that some of its staff based in China could access European user data.
Chew denied the reports of possible data transfers, however, and attempted to allay the lawmakers’ concerns at the hearing, which lasted about five hours. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” he said. The chief was questioned how frequently he was in contact with officials of the Chinese government, and whether the solutions proposed by TikTok would sufficiently protect US data security against strict Chinese laws obliging companies to share sensitive information with the government.
Additionally, Chew was grilled about TikTok’s impact on the mental health of young audiences and the platform’s efforts to ensure user wellbeing. TikTok takes suicide and self-harm “very, very seriously”, he responded.
TikTok already stands banned in several US states. The European Union (EU) and Canada have banned the app from official devices, too. To assuage apprehensive policy advisers, TikTok recently launched a data security program titled Project Clover, which will involve monitoring of data flows outside Europe by a third-party company in addition to user data being stored locally on servers in Ireland and Norway. Under similar plans for the US, TikTok will store data locally on servers managed by tech firm Oracle Corporation, deleting all data stored on servers outside the US. Project Texas will cost ByteDance more than $1.5 billion a year.
These measures, however, have evidently failed to win the lawmakers’ trust, who are pushing for complete bans on the wildly popular app on both sides of the Atlantic. Project Texas was met with skepticism at the hearing by some legislators, who raised questions on its technical capability. In response to the question whether TikTok was a Chinese company, Chew remarked that it is global in nature, headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles.
