TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi grilled by US lawmakers over ‘dangerous’ content amid calls for app to be banned
- Chew’s assurances about TikTok’s efforts to ensure data privacy and monitor content largely fall on deaf ears amid hostile questioning
- ‘TikTok surveils us all, and the Chinese Communist Party is able to use this as a tool to manipulate America as a whole,’ says chair of US House committee
TikTok’s chief executive weathered blistering questioning during a packed Congressional hearing on Thursday as US lawmakers grilled him on the app’s alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party, danger to teenagers and risk to American national security and data privacy.
Chew told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington that his hugely successful company was private, did not allow any government – including China – to manipulate its user data and was putting in place a US$1.5 billion programme to safeguard US data and monitor content.
But the hostile tone was set by the committee chairwoman before Chew uttered his first word and continued unabated.
“TikTok surveils us all, and the Chinese Communist Party is able to use this as a tool to manipulate America as a whole,” Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington state, said in her opening statement. “Your platform should be banned. I expect today you will say anything to avoid this outcome. … We’re not buying it.”
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Chew repeatedly sought to convince the wary lawmakers of efforts by TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, to address their concerns.
