US lawmakers grill TikTok boss over safety, content

David Shepardson and Rami Ayyub | March 24, 2023

United States lawmakers have battered TikTok’s CEO about potential Chinese influence over the platform and said its short videos were damaging children’s mental health, reflecting bipartisan concerns about the app’s power over Americans.

CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before Congress did little to assuage US worries over TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance and added fresh momentum to lawmakers’ calls to ban the platform nationwide.

During five hours of testimony, Chew repeatedly denied the app shares data or has connections with the Chinese Communist Party and argued the platform was doing everything to ensure safety for its 150 million American users.

Chew said TikTok for more than two years has been “building what amounts to a firewall to seal off protected US user data from unauthorised foreign access”.

“The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel,” Chew said.

But not a single lawmaker offered support for TikTok, as they deemed Chew’s answers on China evasive and aired concerns about the power the app holds over US children.

Others accused TikTok of promoting content that encourages eating disorders among children, illegal drug sales and sexual exploitation.

“TikTok could be designed to minimise the harm to kids but a decision was made to aggressively addict kids in the name of profits,” said Representative Kathy Castor, a Democrat, at the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce committee hearing.

Chew responded to many pointed questions by saying the issues were “complex” and not unique to TikTok.

The company says it has spent more than $US1.5 billion ($A2.3 billion) on data security that has almost 1500 full-time employees and is contracted with Oracle Corp to store TikTok’s US user data.

But critics were not appeased as the company failed to announce any new efforts to safeguard privacy.

Chew, who began his testimony by referring to his Singaporean roots, said: “We do not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government.”

“It is our commitment to this committee and all our users that we will keep (TikTok) free from any manipulation by any government,” he said, adding the app strictly screens content that could harm children.

It is not clear how lawmakers will proceed after the hearing or how quickly they might move to pass legislation to strengthen the Biden administration’s legal powers to ban TikTok.

Some 20 US senators – 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans – have backed bipartisan legislation giving President Joe Biden’s administration a path to ban TikTok, and the app’s fate has added a new element to tensions between Washington and Beijing.

TikTok last week said the Biden administration demanded its Chinese owners divest their stakes or face a potential ban.

When asked about a potential divestiture, Chew said the issue was “not about the ownership” and argued US concerns could be addressed by moving data to its US storage centres.

Representative Neal Dunn asked Chew if ByteDance had spied on Americans at Beijing’s request. 

Chew answered “no”.

Republican Dunn then asked about US media reports a China-based team at ByteDance planned to use TikTok to monitor the location of specific US citizens, and repeated his question about whether ByteDance was spying.

“I don’t think that spying is the right way to describe it,” Chew said. 

Shares of US social media companies that compete with TikTok for advertising rose on Thursday, with Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc closing 2.2 per cent higher and Snap Inc up 3.1 per cent.

“SNAP and META are up on idea that the CEO didn’t do well and TikTok may be banned,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman and managing member of Great Hill Capital.

“I think the rumours of TikTok’s demise may be greatly exaggerated.”