TikTok CEO interrogated by US lawmakers over concerns

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew encountered stinging interrogations from U.S. lawmakers Thursday over allegations of the company's connection to the Chinese Communist Party and spying by Beijing.

“Mr. Chew, you are here because the American people need the truth about the threat TikTok poses to our national and personal security,” 

"We do not trust TikTok will ever embrace American values, values for freedom, human rights and innovation," Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, said in her opening statement.  "Your platform should be banned," Rodgers told the TikTok CEO.

A few days back, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an arm of the Treasury Department that evaluates cross-border deals, told ByteDance to dump its investment in TikTok, Nikkei Asia reported. Failure to do so would leave TikTok facing a possible ban in the country.

Chew, a 40-year-old Singapore native, disclosed to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that TikTok prioritizes the safety of its young users and denied it’s a national security risk. He affirmed the company’s plan to protect U.S. user data by storing it on servers maintained and owned by the software giant Oracle.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.He introduced TikTok's efforts to protect U.S. users, and argued that the app, along with its Chinese parent ByteDance, are owned by global investors, not controlled by Beijing.

"The bottom line is this: American data is stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel," Chew said at the high-pressure hearing. TikTok currently has more than 150 million monthly active users in the U.S., according to Chew.

He said that TikTok has never received or obeyed any requests from Beijing, and that he has never had discussions with Chinese government officials since taking the CEO role in 2021. Chew also denied allegations that the platform removed content about human rights violations against Uyghurs and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce told a news conference Thursday that China "strongly opposes" a forced sale of TikTok, and that a sale or divestiture of TikTok would involve exporting technology and must follow Chinese laws.

Other countries including Denmark, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, along with the European Union, have already banned TikTok from government-issued devices.

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