TikTok Chief Government Shou Zi Chew will seem earlier than the US Vitality and Commerce Committee in March, as lawmakers scrutinize the Chinese language-owned video-sharing app.
Chew will testify earlier than the committee on March 23, which will likely be his first look earlier than a congressional committee, stated Consultant Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican chair of the panel, in an announcement on Monday.
The information comes because the Home International Affairs Committee plans to carry a vote subsequent month on a invoice aimed toward blocking using TikTok in the US over nationwide safety issues.
“ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the flexibility for the Chinese language Communist Social gathering to entry American consumer information,” McMorris Rodgers stated, including that People need to understand how these actions impression their privateness and information safety.
TikTok confirmed on Monday Chew will testify.
“We welcome the chance to set the report straight about TikTok, ByteDance, and the commitments we’re making to handle issues about US nationwide safety earlier than the Home Committee on Vitality and Commerce,” an organization spokesperson stated, including the corporate hopes “by sharing particulars of our complete plans with the total committee, Congress can take a extra deliberative strategy to the problems at hand.”
The corporate additionally stated “there is no such thing as a reality to Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ declare that TikTok has made US consumer information accessible to the Chinese language Communist Social gathering. The Chinese language Communist Social gathering has neither direct nor oblique management of ByteDance or TikTok.”
McMorris Rodgers and different Republican lawmakers have demanded extra data from TikTok. They wish to know its impression on younger folks amid issues about dangerous content material, and so they need further particulars on the potential sexual exploitation of minors on the platform, the assertion stated.
For 3 years, TikTok – which has greater than 100 million US customers – has been in search of to guarantee Washington that the non-public information of US residents can’t be accessed and its content material can’t be manipulated by China’s Communist Social gathering or anybody else below Beijing’s affect.
The US authorities’s Committee on International Funding in the US (CFIUS), a robust nationwide safety physique, in 2020, ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok due to fears that US consumer information might be handed onto China’s authorities.
CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks for greater than two years aiming to achieve a nationwide safety settlement to guard the info of US TikTok customers. The White Home on Friday declined to touch upon whether or not it might help a legislative ban on TikTok or the standing of the talks.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
