CEO of TikTok set to testify before House Panel in March. The said hearing will cover a host of topics such as the ties of TikTok to the Chinese government.
CEO of TikTok Set to Testify Before House Panel in March
Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok has now agreed to testify before a US House of Representatives panel on March 23, 2023.
On Monday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced that it will be discussing the heavily scrutinized privacy and data security of the app, the influence of the platform and app on children as well as the relationship with the app to the Chinese government via parent company ByteDance.
The Committee’s Statement Regarding the Issue
“ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data,” the committee in its announcement wrote. “Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security.” The social media platform TikTok however pushed back against this set of accusations.
“There is no truth to [the] claim that TikTok has made U.S. user data available to the Chinese Communist Party,” a spokesperson from TikTok told CENT via an email. “We welcome the opportunity to set the record straight about TikTok, ByteDance, and the commitments we are making to address concerns about U.S. national security.”
TikTok Ha Been Under Heavy Scrutiny from both Federal and State Agencies Lately
The said hearing is coming as more and more government agencies both at the state and federal levels have all tried to clip the wings of the social media platform in regards to its reach.
New Jersey and Ohio in the early parts of January became the latest states to ban TikTok from being downloaded onto devices owned by the government. And close to half the states have taken similar action against the social media platform and this is including Virginia, Texas, and Georgia.
The Senates Bill regarding TikTok Last December
The Senate back in December passed a bill that would then ban TikTok from all government-owned devices, and in that very same month, the Biden-led administration pushed for ByteDance to sell its operations in the US. Officials from the FBI and FCC have all showed their concerns about the app also.
FBI director Christopher Wray said in November that the social media app poses a potential threat to national security as per Bloomberg. And in that same month, Brendan Carr the commissioner of the FCC told Axios that he supports the total ban of TikTok in the United States.
Other Countries to Ban and Restrict the Reach of TikTok
If the United States however did ban TikTok, it would join India as one of the only countries and regions of the world to have an outright ban. Other countries on the other hand have censored or restricted the app.
