TikTok on a smartphone
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TikTok CEO Shou Chew has offered written testimony forward of assembly the US Home Vitality and Commerce Committee to debate accusations across the platform’s ties to China.
Chew is showing in entrance of the committee on March 23, 2023, with the intention to deal with considerations about TikTok’s possession, and its assortment of consumer knowledge. These are points which have already led to the Home of Representatives ordering the removing of TikTok from its employees telephones, and to an growing chance of an outright ban.
CEO Shou Chew will reply questions from the committee, however he has already offered his case in a 5,000-word written testimony. In it, he argues that not solely is TikTok in style within the US, however it’s liable for bringing worldwide “publicity to American musicians, artists, cooks, and lots of extra.”
“Whereas customers in the US symbolize 10 % of our international group,” he writes, “their voice accounts for 25 % of the whole views all over the world.”
Chew additionally stresses how TikTok prides itself on “being a platform that helps [US] firms.. a lot of them small companies… thrive.” He says that over 150 million People use the platform, “and we all know now we have a duty to guard them.”
Consequently, his testimony is cut up into emphasizing what particular steps the corporate is doing to deal with US considerations — and to denying Chinese language connections.
“Let me state this unequivocally,” he continues, “[TikTok owner] ByteDance shouldn’t be an agent of China or some other nation.”
Addressing US considerations
Describing the corporate’s “Undertaking Texas,” Chew says that it includes his agency having “contracted with Oracle… to retailer TikTok’s US consumer knowledge” on servers throughout the US.
“Furthermore, Oracle has already begun inspecting TikTok’s supply code and could have unprecedented entry to the associated algorithms and knowledge fashions,” he continues. “No different social media firm, or leisure platform like TikTok, gives this stage of entry and transparency.”
TikTok continues to be transitioning to Oracle, which suggests it’s at the moment additionally “deleting historic protected US consumer knowledge saved on non-Oracle servers.” When that is full, later in 2023, Chew says, there shall be “no approach for the Chinese language authorities to entry [US user data] or compel entry to it.”
He additionally denies that China has ever requested knowledge, plus he says TikTok would refuse if it have been requested.
Chew argues {that a} ban onTikTok “hurts American small companies, damages the nation’s financial system, silences the voices of over 150 million People, and reduces competitors in an more and more concentrated market.”
“Bans are solely applicable when there aren’t any alternate options,” he continues. “However we do have another one which we imagine addresses the considerations we have heard from this Committee and others.”
That plan facilities on 4 commitments. “We’ll hold security — significantly for youngsters — a prime precedence for us,” says Chew. “We’ll firewall protected US consumer knowledge from unauthorized overseas entry.”
“Tiktok will stay a platform totally free expression and won’t be manipulated by any authorities,” he says. And eventually, “we shall be clear and provides entry to third-party impartial screens, to stay accountable for our commitments.”
A lot of Chew’s place within the new testimony is, as he factors out, the identical that he has been discussing with the committee and different events, significantly regarding Undertaking Texas.
