Shou Zi Chew got the face of a poker player. It was not for less when the president of the Energy and Commerce committee, the Republican Cathy Rodgers, began the session by saying things like this: “For the American public, TikTok is a weapon of the Chinese Communist Party.”
He also added that this application must be banned throughout the country, an idea that is becoming increasingly popular among legislators and that the White House supports with the ultimatum that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sell the application or close it down.
The chief executive of TikTok, in his first appearance in the United States Congress, heard the accusation of espionage and several others, some as terrible as the mental damage to children and adolescents with his “addictive algorithm.”
He was subjected to a tough session, fried with high-voltage questions, despite Chew trying to soften up lawmakers in his presentation. He stressed that he is originally from Singapore, having studied in the UK and the US, where he met his wife. “He was born a few miles from here,” he said.
After alluding to the more than 1,000 million monthly active users, of which 150 million are in the US, Chew stressed that they spend a lot of time protecting teenagers and “we learned the lesson from those who came before.”
“Many of the measures we have taken are firsts in the social media industry,” he said. “We prohibit direct messages between children under 16 years of age. We have a viewing time of 60 minutes by default for those under 18 and we have a space for parents to participate in their children’s experience, ”she specified.
“We want TikTok to be a place where teenagers can come to learn,” he insisted. All his words seemed to come crashing down like a house of cards when Republican Michael Bilirakis played a compilation of suicide videos set to ominous music.
Chew, who struggled at times with the harassment, said the platform takes mental health very seriously and referred questions about suicide or death to the platform’s security page. “We didn’t buy this from him,” Rodgers replied. In reality, with his responses, sometimes defiant of him, he only deepened the abyss of distrust of congressmen, such as when he remarked that TikTok does not sell information to anyone.
“We have a firewall to protect our data from any government interference,” he said. That would include China, which has already announced that it will oppose any forced sale. This called into question Chew’s proclamation that ByteDance is not controlled by the Beijing government. He explained that it is a private company set up by investors (almost 60%), by the founders (20%) and employees (20%). Three of the five board members are American.
Concern over national security flew over, without evidence. “The key is that American data is on American soil, watched by Americans,” he insisted.
However, legislator Bob Latta required him to say “yes or no” regarding the access of Chinese workers, including engineers, to American information. Chew drew incredulous laughter with his reply: “This is a complex matter.”
