The CEO of TikTok has faced heated questions in the US over the safety of the app, and links to the Chinese Government. jekearsley 9News MORE:
The hearing, which lasted for more than five hours, kicked off with calls from a lawmaker to ban the app and remained combative throughout.
"TikTok itself is not available in mainland China, we're headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we have 7000 employees in the US today," he said. But since the Chinese government enjoys significant leverage over businesses under its jurisdiction, the theory goes that ByteDance, and thus indirectly, TikTok, could be forced to cooperate with a broad range of security activities, including possibly the transfer of TikTok data.
Chew responded: "I have looked in — and I have seen no evidence of this happening. Our commitment is to move their data into the United States, to be stored on American soil by an American company, overseen by American personnel. So the risk would be similar to any government going to an American company, asking for data.
Democratic ranking member of the committee Representative Frank Pallone, for example, said Thursday: "Research has found that TikTok's algorithms recommend videos to teens that create and exacerbate feelings of emotional distress, including videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders." Zuckerberg testified before the same house committee for hours back in 2018 in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Speaking at a separate House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Blinken said he did not know if it would be sufficient for TikTok to be divested from its Chinese parent company.
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