Tiktok boss cannot convince MPs – ban is imminent
In a more than five-hour interrogation before the US House of Representatives’ Energy and Trade Committee, Shou Zi Chew tried to show that the app used in the US is free of any foreign interference, especially from the Chinese government.
It may not have helped him that the same government felt it necessary to declare, hours before the hearing, that it would oppose any US attempt to force the sale of the company by its Chinese owners.
Shou Zi Chew was exposed to sharp attacks from both political camps. Both Democrats and Republicans have been very vocal about their growing concerns about Beijing’s influence on Tiktok.
Republican committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers had already demanded that Shou Zi Chew declare “with 100 percent certainty” that the Chinese government has neither directly nor indirectly through its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance Ltd. to monitor Americans or to manipulate content displayed to these user groups.
It didn’t go over well when Chew said in general terms that his company was committed to protecting US users’ data from “all unwanted foreign access” and keeping the content “free of any tampering by any government.” “If you can’t say it with 100 percent certainty, I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” the chair concluded.
Vice-Chairman Frank Pallone was also extremely skeptical. “I still believe that the communist government in Beijing can control and influence what you do,” he said. He doesn’t think Tiktok is “a benign company that only provides a public service.”
Overall, the hearing can be described as thoroughly hostile throughout its entire course. Variously, Chew has been compared to Zuckerberg. He also tried to act as a master of the word. He wasn’t able to convince either.
Meanwhile, Chew struggled to make all sorts of promises. The platform will work to ensure a safe environment for young people. He addressed the MPs directly:
“Our approach has never been to dismiss or downplay these concerns. We addressed them with real action. We have to earn your trust.”
Towards the end of the hearing, the Democrat Lori Trahan denied that he had achieved exactly this. “For me, that hasn’t been the case until now,” she said, referring to an attempt to gain the trust of committee members.
What was particularly bad was that Chew had to admit that Chinese developers also have access to American data. “We depend on global interoperability, and we have employees in China, so yes, the Chinese engineers have access to global data,” he said. “American data has historically always been stored in Virginia and Singapore. And it is accessed as needed by engineers around the world for business purposes.”
As a result, it should be seen as a consensus that the committee could not be convinced that Tiktok is not subject to Chinese government access. The Biden government recently asked the Chinese owners of Tiktok to sell their shares. Otherwise, a ban is to be expected.
The committee was further angered by the fact that shortly before the hearing, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce had stated that any sale would involve the export of Chinese technology and would have to be approved by the Chinese government.
“The Chinese Communist Party believes they have the final say over your company,” said the committee chair, adding, “I have zero confidence in your assertion that ByteDance and TikTok are not beholden to party leadership.”
