TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is ready to testify earlier than the Home Power and Commerce Committee on Thursday. If there’s anybody left in Congress or the American public who hasn’t made up their minds concerning the ultra-popular short-form app, the manager will try to sway them to his aspect.
The app is already banned on authorities units, and President Joe Biden has threatened to ban TikTok nationwide if ByteDance doesn’t promote it to a non-Chinese language entity. For the reason that Trump administration, the American authorities has been threatening to ban TikTok. The app is owned by ByteDance, a tech firm primarily based in Beijing, and by regulation the Chinese language Communist Celebration may power the app handy over American consumer information—one thing which Chew will vehemently deny throughout his opening remarks. There are additionally questions on whether or not the app may very well be used to unfold Chinese language or anti-American propaganda, and lots of critics argue that TikTok is harmful for kids and youngsters.
In his ready assertion, launched Wednesday and posted beneath, Chew will argue that TikTok already addressed these issues. Chew lays out extra particulars about so known as “Venture Texas,” a plan the place TikTok is partnering with an American tech firm, Oracle, to accommodate American consumer information on servers within the US, the place the knowledge can be siloed to maintain it out of the fingers of the Chinese language authorities. Chew additionally says that kids and youngsters are handled to particular protections on TikTok, each when it comes to the content material they see and the way information is collected.
However he’ll additionally make a broader argument. Chew is making an attempt to make the case that TikTok is important to American small companies and free speech, and that it’s too essential to the app’s reported 150 million US customers to ban.
TikTok’s Chew is quieter than his counterparts at different tech platforms. The place Mark Zuckerberg is the important thing spokesperson for Meta and Elon Musk is actually the one one who ever speaks for Twitter, Chew has courted the general public eye far much less. After tomorrow, TikTok may have a public face for the first time.
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What is going to TikTok’s CEO say to Congress?
Chair Rodgers, Rating Member Pallone, and Members of the Committee:
Thanks for the chance to look earlier than you in the present day to speak about TikTok and our mission to encourage creativity and produce pleasure to greater than 1 billion folks worldwide. I stay up for discussing what makes TikTok so particular to the various audiences it serves, in addition to our efforts to advertise minor security, information privateness, and platform safety. I additionally welcome the possibility to replace you about our efforts to develop cutting-edge, multi-pronged initiatives to deal with nationwide safety issues.
My title is Shou Chew, and I’m the Chief Government Officer of TikTok. I’m liable for all of TikTok’s enterprise operations and our strategic path worldwide. A 3rd-generation Singaporean, I’m a graduate of College Faculty of London and Harvard Enterprise Faculty. I’m a veteran of the Singapore Armed Forces, a husband, and a father, and I presently reside in Singapore with my spouse and two kids.
Lengthy earlier than I grew to become CEO, I used to be a content material creator, and I’ve seen firsthand the transformative functionality of short-form video. I’m captivated with TikTok’s potential to brighten folks’s lives, introduce them to new concepts and pursuits, and assist companies connect with their audiences.
On TikTok, we intention to supply three issues. The primary is a window to find. This window, the For You feed, opens to a stream of movies curated to your pursuits, making it straightforward to seek out content material and creators you like. The second is a canvas to create. Whether or not it’s demonstrating a brand new science experiment or the newest cooking pattern, folks all over the world use TikTok to unleash creativity. The third is a bridge to attach. By way of TikTok, folks have found new communities, cultures, and pursuits. For example, BookTok, with greater than 100 billion views, has linked readers throughout the globe and adjusted the way in which folks eat literature. Though some folks should still consider TikTok as a dancing app for youngsters, the truth is that our platform and our group have change into a lot extra for thus many.
TikTok has empowered hundreds of thousands of Individuals to specific their voices in their very own genuine method and has supplied a worldwide stage for his or her creativity in a method that can not be replicated on every other platform or in every other medium. Greater than 150 million folks in the US use TikTok on a month-to-month foundation, with the common consumer in the present day being an grownup effectively previous school age. Their movies present a lens by means of which the remainder of the world can expertise American tradition. Examples embody TikTok’s position in bringing publicity to American musicians, artists, cooks, and lots of extra. Whereas customers in the US characterize 10 p.c of our international group, their voice accounts for 25 p.c of the whole views all over the world.
Along with being a vacation spot to specific creativity, we delight ourselves on being a platform that helps firms—a lot of them small companies—thrive. These are companies like Nation Lather Cleaning soap Works in Perkinston, Mississippi. Nation Lather Cleaning soap Works is a no-frills producer of handcrafted soaps and bathtub merchandise situated on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Founder Jessie Whittington had been making cleaning soap as a passion for years earlier than sharing her ardour on TikTok whereas furloughed from her job as a bus driver. In a short while, gross sales exploded and she or he was transport her merchandise throughout the nation, permitting her to give up her 9-to-5 and understand her dream of operating her personal small enterprise.
TikTok enabled many small companies to climate the darkest days of the pandemic, and a latest examine discovered that an amazing majority of small companies view TikTok as each enjoyable and simple to make use of. TikTok’s Small Enterprise Useful resource Heart helps folks leverage the ability and creativity of TikTok to develop their manufacturers and higher join with their viewers. If you happen to discuss to the hundreds of thousands of individuals and companies who’re on TikTok, I imagine you’ll hear extremely highly effective tales of discovery, creation, and connection that contribute to folks’s livelihoods and well-being.
Though I may discuss all day about how TikTok enriches folks’s lives, I’m additionally right here to deal with issues which were raised by some members of this Committee. I do know that belief is one thing that’s earned by means of motion, not phrases, and I welcome the chance to debate not solely our commitments, but additionally tangible proof from TikTok’s efforts to change into a pacesetter in security and safety.
Having met with various members of the Committee in latest weeks, the issues that I’ve heard fall primarily into 4 classes: minor security, information privateness and safety, real-world harms from on-line actions, and the chance of overseas content material manipulation. I wish to tackle every of those in flip. After that, I’ll examine some myths about TikTok to actuality, together with with regard to perceived overseas affect. First, nonetheless, I need to take a second to spotlight TikTok’s dedication to an open and clear relationship with Congress usually and this Committee particularly.
There are greater than 150 million Individuals who love our platform, and we all know we’ve got a duty to guard them, which is why I’m making the next commitments to you and our customers:
1) We are going to maintain security—significantly for youngsters—a high precedence for us;
2) We are going to firewall protected U.S. consumer information from unauthorized overseas entry;
3) Tiktok will stay a platform without spending a dime expression and won’t be manipulated by any authorities;
4) We can be clear and provides entry to third-party unbiased displays, to stay accountable for our commitments.
TikTok’s Dedication to Transparency
Though that is my first time testifying earlier than Congress, TikTok has lengthy thought-about Congress an essential stakeholder, and we’ve got engaged actively with this Committee and others. TikTok routinely and voluntarily gives paperwork, briefings, and testimony to congressional committees.
As an illustration, over the previous a number of months, TikTok has supplied 4 briefings to the bipartisan staffs of this Committee and the Home Committee on Oversight and Accountability on points together with information entry and safety. We additionally individually briefed this Committee in January on our efforts associated to minor security. By way of these briefings, TikTok has answered questions on our strong insurance policies and the enhancements that we’ve got made and can proceed to make to even additional strengthen our capabilities. As a result of we worth Congress’s essential oversight position, we repeatedly present paperwork and data effectively past our authorized obligations. We stay up for persevering with to have interaction in a clear and productive dialogue with this Committee and others.
TikTok’s engagement with Congress is emblematic of our broader method to transparency. Each quarter, we launch a Group Tips Enforcement Report. These stories comprise detailed details about the sort and quantity of content material we take away. Twice a 12 months, we additionally disclose information about requests we obtain from regulation enforcement or governments.
Moreover, we’re creating platform analysis and content material moderation Utility
Programming Interfaces (APIs) as a part of our dedication to bringing transparency to how our platform operates. As of final month, we’ve got launched a analysis API that enables U.S.-based educational researchers to extra simply analyze public content material posted to the platform.
We offer detailed details about our content material moderation course of and suggestion system in our Transparency and Accountability Heart. After providing digital excursions through the pandemic, we just lately opened the doorways to the primary bodily Transparency and Accountability Heart in Los Angeles. One other middle is deliberate for Washington, D.C. We’d be glad to rearrange a digital or in-person tour for Members and Committee workers at your comfort.
Minor Security
Security and wellness—specifically for teenagers—is a core precedence for TikTok. And as a father of two, these points are private for me. At the moment’s youth are rising up in a digital media world, and TikTok is keen to be a part of the dialog about creating extra strong protections. TikTok helps creating further protections, together with potential updates to the Youngsters’s On-line Privateness Safety Act, to deal with the trendy on-line ecosystem. We’d equally welcome a dialog round laws to enshrine higher business requirements for age verification. We’re dedicated to working constructively and collaboratively with the Committee on this essential laws.
Along with forward-thinking laws, good product design can also be central to minor security. To assist teenagers safely handle their expertise, TikTok gives them with age-appropriate settings and controls. The settings TikTok has developed mirror cautious consideration of not solely the variations between folks beneath 13 and youngsters, but additionally inside the 13-17 teenage group.
As an preliminary matter, TikTok gives a separate expertise in the US for folks beneath 13. In the US, folks beneath 13 are directed to a separate, curated viewing expertise, with stringent safeguards and privateness protections designed particularly for them. On this expertise, youthful customers can view on their units enjoyable, inventive, and academic movies which can be vetted by a third-party skilled, Widespread Sense Networks. Nonetheless, they can’t put up movies on the platform, touch upon others’ movies, message with others, or preserve a profile or followers. No ads are proven within the under-13 expertise.
TikTok additionally has taken quite a few steps to assist make sure that teenagers beneath 18 have a protected and
pleasurable expertise on the app. Many of those measures impose restrictions not shared by different platforms. We launch nice merchandise with a safety-by-design mentality, even when these options restrict our monetization alternatives.
For instance, accounts registered to teenagers beneath 16 are set to personal by default. They’re additionally prevented from sending direct messages, and their content material is ineligible for suggestion into the For You feed. These measures go far past what any of our friends do. We additionally stop teenagers from receiving late-night push notifications and provides dad and mom and guardians the power to create additional restrictions on these notifications.
Moreover, solely accounts registered to folks 18 or older can host a livestream on the
platform. All livestream hosts in the US are required to have a minimal of 1,000 followers on TikTok. To take part in monetization packages reminiscent of items, they need to even be not less than 18 years previous. Along with an business commonplace age gate, TikTok additionally makes use of each know-how (e.g., text-based fashions like Pure Language Processing) and human moderation to assist decide whether or not a consumer could also be beneath 18 years previous. If a consumer is suspected of being beneath 18, the livestream is shipped for human moderation. Individuals on TikTok may also report doubtlessly underage customers. If a moderator concludes the host seems to be beneath 18 years previous, the livestream is stopped instantly and the consumer is suspended.
Earlier this month, we introduced that each account belonging to an individual beneath age 18 can be set by default to a 60-minute each day display screen time restrict. We consulted consultants from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Youngsters’s Hospital in selecting this restrict. If the 60-minute restrict is reached, teenagers can be prompted to enter a passcode so as to proceed watching, requiring them to make an lively resolution to increase that point. In our under-13 expertise, the each day display screen time restrict may even be set to 60 minutes, and a dad or mum or guardian might want to set or enter a passcode to allow half-hour of further watch time.
TikTok’s Minor Security staff holds a excessive bar of rigor for creating coverage. TikTok is staffed with consultants from the fields of adolescent growth, prevention science, and little one safety. TikTok works with main youth security and well-being consultants, in addition to adolescent psychologists, to tell our method, together with the Household On-line Security Institute, Widespread Sense Networks, the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Youngsters’s Hospital, ConnectSafely, and the Cyberbullying Analysis Heart, in addition to our personal U.S. Content material Advisory Council. TikTok can also be lively with the Expertise Coalition, a company that works to guard kids from on-line sexual exploitation and abuse, and serves on its board of administrators and as chair of its transparency committee. TikTok rigorously screens content material for indications of potential predatory or abusive habits.
TikTok’s moderation system makes use of fashions to determine content material, together with movies, captions, and feedback, that violates our Youth Security and Wellbeing Coverage. Each video uploaded to TikTok goes by means of automated moderation, and doubtlessly violative content material is robotically eliminated or escalated for human evaluate by one in every of our skilled moderators who’ve undergone specialised coaching to detect the indicators of grooming or predatory habits.
Along with our personal know-how, TikTok has built-in with Hash Sharing Internet Companies from the Nationwide Heart for Lacking & Exploited Youngsters (NCMEC) to allow the detection and elimination of recognized violative content material on the level of add to TikTok. In 2021, we made 154,618 stories to NCMEC and had been alone amongst main platforms in not receiving any takedown requests from NCMEC. Put in another way, TikTok’s swift actions resulted within the elimination of abusive content material earlier than NCMEC obtained stories of it from different sources.
TikTok additionally acknowledges that oldsters and caregivers are essential companions in guaranteeing the protection of teenagers. Mother and father and guardians can’t do it alone, and neither can we. TikTok is constantly on the lookout for methods to contain dad and mom and guardians of their teenagers’ expertise on the platform. To that finish, in 2020, TikTok unveiled Household Pairing.
Household Pairing permits a dad or mum or guardian to hyperlink their account (from the dad or mum or guardian’s system) with their teenager’s account and allow privateness and security controls. Mother and father and guardians may also set display screen deadlines and determine whether or not their teenagers can seek for content material, accounts, hashtags, or sounds. These options empower dad and mom and guardians to customise their teenagers’ privateness and security settings, which TikTok continues to enhance in session with youth and household security consultants.
Though we’ve got achieved loads, we’re at all times working vigilantly to remain forward of the curve. Consequently, we are going to by no means think about our work performed, and we are going to by no means cease on the lookout for methods to enhance. I’m positive I’ll study of recent areas the place we are able to enhance in the present day. I’m each proud that TikTok has been a pacesetter on these points and inspired to see that different platforms have adopted among the protections that we’ve got pioneered.
Knowledge Privateness
Defending the privateness of the individuals who use our platform is essential to our mission. To that finish, we totally endorse congressional efforts to undertake complete federal privateness laws. This Committee, led by Chair Rodgers and Rating Member Pallone, has been on the forefront of those points, and we stay up for working with this Committee to assist enact baseline privateness laws that establishes constant and robust privateness requirements.
Privateness is constructed into TikTok by design in order that our group can confidently uncover, create, and revel in entertaining content material. Individuals on TikTok have entry to a variety of privateness settings, together with selecting whether or not their account is personal or public; deciding on to whom we might counsel their account; setting limits on who can work together with their movies, together with with options like Sew and Duet, or who can touch upon their movies; and selecting who can tag and point out them in a put up, from “Everybody” to “No One.”
We gather a restricted quantity of data when folks arrange an account, reminiscent of date of start and username. Relying on how the person indicators up, we may gather a cellphone quantity or e mail tackle. Not like another platforms, we don’t require folks on TikTok to supply us with their actual names throughout registration, nor will we ask them about their employment or relationship standing. Present variations of the app don’t gather exact or approximate GPS data from U.S. customers.
One other essential a part of being a accountable steward of consumer information is proudly owning as much as our errors and making adjustments to deal with them. That’s why we promptly took motion, together with a company-wide disclosure, after we discovered late final 12 months that sure (now former) staff had accessed TikTok consumer information in an unsuccessful and misguided try to hint the supply of a leak of confidential TikTok data. We additionally notified this Committee about these ill-advised actions inside moments of informing our staff. I condemn this misconduct within the strongest potential phrases.
I perceive that we’ve got supplied the Committee with a briefing on this topic and have dedicated to ongoing cooperation. Specifically, to reveal that we’ve got zero tolerance for the previous staff’ misconduct, we’ve got supplied the Committee with a full accounting of factual findings and remediation efforts by means of the surface regulation agency that’s conducting the investigation into the matter. These remediation efforts embody restructuring the division concerned within the misconduct, creating a brand new Oversight Council, and strengthening insurance policies and operational controls referring to U.S. consumer information entry.
Protecting TikTok Protected for All
As CEO, I think about the protection of the platform to be paramount. Greater than 40,000 folks
globally work solely on belief and questions of safety for TikTok. This contains in-house and contract moderators, in addition to groups centered on security coverage, product, and operations. TikTok invests closely in these groups, in addition to in know-how to detect potential violations and suspicious accounts at scale. As an illustration, in 2021, TikTok spent roughly $1 billion on belief and security. Belief and security represents our largest labor expense for TikTok’s U.S. operations.
We’re very cognizant of the truth that on-line conduct can have real-world penalties. We try to supply a protected setting for the TikTok group and to take away content material that violates our insurance policies, together with those who prohibit bullying, hateful habits, promotion of disordered consuming, and violent extremism. By way of our quarterly Group Tips Enforcement Experiences, we repeatedly replace the general public on how we’re measuring as much as this preferrred.
As an illustration, within the third quarter of 2022, we proactively eliminated 96.5 p.c of violative content material earlier than receiving any stories from customers or others. In 92.7 p.c of instances, the elimination occurred inside 24 hours of when the content material was posted.
Individuals come to TikTok to really feel impressed, be inventive, and watch uplifting content material. It isn’t the platform of alternative for people looking for to have interaction in dangerous conduct. Nonetheless, we additionally understand that threats to on-line platform security are removed from static. Content material moderation, which is a core component of platform security, is an exceptionally sophisticated, dynamic, and consistently evolving course of. TikTok’s content material moderation successes—and challenges—mirror widespread business experiences for digital and short-form video platforms. TikTok consistently works to enhance, regulate, and make extra constant the event and implementation of content material moderation insurance policies. Amongst different initiatives, TikTok’s U.S. Content material Advisory Council, which brings collectively exterior consultants, helps advise on how to reply to rising challenges.
Our Promoting Insurance policies additionally mirror our dedication to platform security. We worth being an setting the place inventive, joyful content material can flourish, and we’ve got made choices that prioritize security over short-term industrial success. For instance, we don’t enable paid political advertisements on the platform, although they may very well be a supply of serious income. Nor will we settle for ads for classes of content material that will damage our efforts to help the protection of our group, reminiscent of ads related to violence or threats, together with weapons, weapons, and tactical gear.
Different classes not permitted within the U.S. market beneath our Promoting Insurance policies embody
promotion of: alcohol, invasive beauty procedures, and multi-level advertising recruitment, amongst many further topics. Our Group Tips apply with full power to all ads on the platform, such that any content material that may not be permitted if uploaded by a consumer wouldn’t be allowed as a paid commercial.
Knowledge Safety
I need to take this chance to deal with the work, of which I’m extremely proud, that TikTok is doing to change into probably the most trusted and safe digital platform. However I do know that merely describing our efforts just isn’t sufficient. Congress and the American folks understandably need proof that we live as much as our beliefs. So I may even tackle the quite a few layers of oversight that TikTok has voluntarily embraced. Belief should be earned by means of motion, not phrases. Constructing belief is above all an engineering and governance effort, not a public relations train. We are going to go above and past, so our group and regulators can see and confirm our actions. And we hope you’ll give us that likelihood.
The centerpiece of our work is known as Venture Texas. Venture Texas is an unprecedented initiative devoted to safeguarding each U.S. consumer information and U.S. nationwide safety pursuits. This initiative addresses key problems with company governance, content material suggestion and moderation, information safety, and system entry. It’s a complete package deal of measures with layers of unbiased oversight to guard towards backdoors into TikTok that may very well be used to govern the platform or entry U.S. consumer protected information.
Venture Texas places the ideas of transparency and accountability into motion by addressing nationwide safety issues head-on with concrete, measurable options. Venture Texas is designed to introduce layers of transparency and vetting which can be generally used for protection contractors however are extraordinary for client platforms. Provided that it is a fluid and dynamic course of, I need to take a while to deal with what we’ve performed already and what we’re engaged on.
First, we’ve got already taken substantial steps to make Venture Texas a actuality, together with spending roughly $1.5 billion up to now on implementation. We’ve shaped a special-purpose subsidiary, TikTok U.S. Knowledge Safety Inc. (USDS), that presently has practically 1,500 full-time staff. We anticipate that quantity to develop considerably over the approaching 12 months. USDS contains the capabilities that oversee protected U.S. consumer information and the underlying TikTok U.S. platform.
To make sure that the information of all Individuals is saved in America and hosted by an American
headquartered firm, we’ve got contracted with Oracle, an business chief in cloud-based providers, to retailer TikTok’s U.S. consumer information. At the moment, 100% of U.S. consumer site visitors is being routed to Oracle and USDS-controlled infrastructure in the US. USDS is operating our suggestion system for U.S. customers, which determines what seems within the For You feed, within the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Furthermore, Oracle has already begun inspecting TikTok’s supply code and may have unprecedented entry to the associated algorithms and information fashions. No different social media firm, or leisure platform like TikTok, gives this degree of entry and transparency. As of January 18, 2023, TikTok’s entry to techniques containing new protected information re solely managed by USDS.
Subsequent, I need to tackle what we’re engaged on now. I do know that there was quite a lot of
hypothesis about Venture Texas just lately primarily based on media protection. Whereas conversations with the federal government are ongoing, our work on Venture Texas has continued unabated. We’re working exhausting day-after-day to succeed in new milestones. For instance, earlier this month, we started the method of deleting historic protected U.S. consumer information saved in non-Oracle servers; we anticipate this course of to be accomplished later this 12 months. When that course of is full, all protected U.S. information can be beneath the safety of U.S. regulation and beneath the management of the U.S.-led safety staff. Below this construction, there is no such thing as a method for the Chinese language authorities to entry it or compel entry to it.
As well as, as of January 2023, all entry to techniques containing new protected U.S. consumer information has been solely managed by USDS, and all entry to the brand new protected information is proscribed to authorised USDS staff. There are some restricted exceptions the place non-USDS staff could also be granted entry to protected information, for instance, for authorized and compliance, however such entry should be expressly approved by USDS pursuant to a sturdy information entry protocol. Moreover, no staff of Beijing Douyin Info Service Co., Ltd. have entry to any databases that comprise any protected U.S. consumer information.
We even have a imaginative and prescient for the place we are able to go sooner or later. As an illustration, there can be clear eligibility standards for brand new USDS personnel. Knowledge entry would even be topic to data safety controls that may be authorised by each a U.S. government-approved third-party monitor and a third-party auditor. And USDS staff would report into an unbiased USDS board of administrators who can be authorised by and owe a fiduciary obligation to the federal authorities.
We’re keen to listen to suggestions and to deal with any issues. We proceed to imagine that
imposing state-of-the-art entry and safety controls is the perfect path ahead, not just for TikTok, however for the business as a complete, and we stay dedicated to continued session and to discovering revolutionary solutions to what we firmly imagine are solvable issues.
I’m effectively conscious that the truth that ByteDance has Chinese language founders has prompted issues that our platform may very well be used as or change into a software of China or the Chinese language Communist Celebration. There have even been calls to ban us or require divestment.
I steadfastly imagine that every one issues which were raised have options. Bans are solely
acceptable when there are not any options. However we do have another—one which we imagine addresses the issues we’ve heard from this Committee and others. We don’t imagine {that a} ban that hurts American small companies, damages the nation’s financial system, silences the voices of over 150 million Individuals, and reduces competitors in an more and more concentrated market is the answer to a solvable drawback.
Likewise, divestment doesn’t tackle the elemental issues that I’ve heard, as a change in possession wouldn’t impose any new restrictions on information flows or entry. This isn’t a problem of nationality. All international firms face widespread challenges that have to be addressed by means of safeguards and transparency. I’m proud that TikTok is taking the lead on this space, and I welcome the possibility to proceed having conversations with the U.S. authorities to make this mannequin even higher.
To be clear, our dedication beneath Venture Texas is for the information of all Individuals to be saved in America, hosted by an American headquartered firm, with entry to the information managed by USDS personnel. We provide this framework in order that we are able to proceed to perform what we worth most: being a platform without spending a dime expression beloved by greater than 1 billion folks, together with over 150 million Individuals.
Myths Versus Actuality
Lastly, I’d like to deal with some misconceptions about TikTok.
First, I perceive that there are issues stemming from the wrong perception that TikTok’s company construction makes it beholden to the Chinese language authorities or that it shares details about U.S. customers with the Chinese language authorities. That is emphatically unfaithful.
TikTok is led by an govt staff in the US and Singapore and has international places of work, together with in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Nashville, New York, Washington, D.C., Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo. Our headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore. TikTok just isn’t out there in mainland China. As CEO, I’m liable for all enterprise operations and strategic choices for TikTok. TikTok, as a U.S. firm integrated in the US, is topic to the legal guidelines of the US.
TikTok has by no means shared, or obtained a request to share, U.S. consumer information with the Chinese language authorities. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one had been ever made. Certainly, a 2021 report from Citizen Lab, an internationally famend safety analysis laboratory, discovered that there was no overt information transmission by TikTok to the Chinese language authorities and that TikTok didn’t contact any servers inside China.
TikTok publishes details about all requests we obtain from regulation enforcement in our semiannual Info Requests Report. This contains details about the international locations from which the requests originate. As mirrored on this information, no requests have come from China.
TikTok’s dad or mum firm, ByteDance, was based by Chinese language entrepreneurs, however has developed into a worldwide enterprise since its founding. ByteDance is a privately-held international firm, with roughly 60 p.c owned by international institutional buyers (reminiscent of Blackrock, Normal Atlantic, and Sequoia), roughly 20 p.c owned by the corporate’s founders, and roughly 20 p.c owned by its staff—together with hundreds of Individuals. It isn’t owned or managed by any authorities or state entity. ByteDance’s board is comprised of CEO Rubo Liang, Invoice Ford of Normal Atlantic, Arthur Dantchik of Susquehanna Worldwide Group, Philippe Laffont of Coatue, and Neil Shen of Sequoia China.
Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance just isn’t an agent of China or every other nation. Nonetheless, for the explanations mentioned above, you don’t merely must take my phrase on that.
Fairly, our method has been to work transparently and cooperatively with the U.S. authorities and Oracle to design strong options to deal with issues about TikTok’s heritage.
Second, there are misconceptions about the kind of information that TikTok collects. As an illustration, there have been various press tales alleging that TikTok “tracks” folks. This isn’t correct. As famous above, present variations of the app don’t gather exact or approximate GPS data from U.S. customers.
These are only a couple examples of some widespread misconceptions. I stay up for addressing these inaccuracies and others throughout my testimony.
Conclusion
TikTok is a vibrant market for a various group of greater than 1 billion creators. As we fulfill our mission to encourage creativity and produce pleasure, we stay resolute in our dedication to security and safety, and we stay up for incomes the belief of this Committee and the American public. We additionally stay up for partnering with the Committee on creating clear, constant guidelines for all the business.
In relation to defending our group, we all know there’s no end line. The business as a complete faces dynamic and ever-evolving challenges. We are going to at all times work to deploy our groups, instruments, and sources to fulfill them and to reveal our exhausting work and transparency.
Thanks for the chance to look in the present day and to reply questions on these essential points.
