TikTok CEO grilled: Here are key takeaways from Shou Zi Chew’s Congress hearing

In his first-ever appearance before the US Congress, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew was grilled for almost five hours.

The hearing, which took place on Thursday in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, saw the combative US lawmakers raising concerns over the app’s alleged ties with the Chinese government and privacy practices.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” he said as he began his testimony.

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Defending TikTok’s privacy practices, Chew said, “There are more than 150 million Americans who love our platform, and we know we have a responsibility to protect them.”

Here are the key takeaways from the hearing:

China’s shadow over TikTok

In a rare bipartisan call, many of the lawmakers—Democrats and Republicans—called for a complete ban on the video-sharing app, claiming that it has links with the Chinese government.

The committee members sought to know how frequently Chew was in contact with them, and questioned whether the company’s proposed solution, called Project Texas, would offer sufficient protection against the Chinese laws under which companies operating in the mainland are obligated to make user data accessible to the government.

A Democrat from California, Tony Cárdenas, asked Chew if TikTok is a Chinese company.

Chew responded that TikTok is global in nature, and headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles, and not available in mainland China.

The CEO rubbished claims that TikTok poses national security threat in the US, saying that a lot of the risks pointed out were “hypothetical and theoretical”.

TikTok CEO grilled over alleged China ties by US lawmakers for 5 hours

He said that under the company’s US$1.5 billion Project Texas plan, the handling of US data will be stored into a separate division of the company, co-controlled with Austin-based company, Oracle.

“American data is stored on American soil by an American company, overseen by American personnel,” he said.

“So the risk would be similar to any government going to an American company, asking for data,” he added.

TikTok and data collection

The congressmen also question about TikTok’s data collection practices.

Chew responded by emphasising that the data TikTok collects is the data “that’s frequently collected by many other companies in our industry.”

“We are committed to be very transparent with our users about what we collect,” Chew said. “I don’t believe what we collect is more than most players in the industry.”

He was then asked if the app collects data on health and GPS. He told the committee that it doesn’t.

The CEO also said that American tech firms “don’t have a good track record” when it comes to data privacy, singling out Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Youth safety and mental health

One of the important topics that came up for discussion was what kind of impact the app has on children.

The lawmakers raised concerns over reports that the app promotes harmful content and wanted to know whether TikTok was taking any measures to moderate t.

“Your technology is leading to death,” Republican Representative Gus Bilirakis said.

Chew said that as a father of two, the issues around youth safety were “personal for me”.

He asserted that the app provides users with “age-appropriate settings and controls”, and that it offers a “separate experience” in the US for children under 13.

The 40-yeear-old said that that videos are first vetted by a third-party expert Common Sense Network, and then made accessible to children to give them a “curated viewing experience”.

Those under 13 also cannot post videos, comment or message others, he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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