TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared well prepared to arrive at the Capitol.
Seated before dozens of members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, he opened a pack of notes, diligently indexed with sticky notes. Inside the package was a sheet with the names and faces of lawmakers preparing to question him — many of whom had already decided whether the app was safe for Americans.
“Your platform should be banned,” said Chair Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) in her opening statement Thursday. “I expect you will say anything today to avoid this outcome.”
For more than three years, TikTok has been operating under the looming threat of a nationwide ban. But what was once a GOP-led campaign denouncing the popular video-sharing app as a threat to national security has now evolved into a government-wide, bipartisan effort to ban it outright.
In the past few months alone, Republicans and Democrats have rallied behind legislation banning TikTok from operating in the US. Intelligence officials have called the app “a tool” of the Chinese government, and the Biden administration has reportedly cornered the company. If TikTok doesn’t agree to find a US replacement for its Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, it will be banned.
“Your platform should be banned…I expect you will say anything today to avoid this outcome.”
But at this point, there’s little evidence to support the allegations dogging the company. In a pledge to lawmakers Thursday, Chew said: “TikTok has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government, or received a request to share it. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made.
For Chew, concerns about TikTok’s alleged relationship with the Chinese government rest more on speculation than fact. “I think many of the risks mentioned are hypothetical and theoretical risks,” he said. “I have not seen any evidence. I am eagerly awaiting discussions where we can talk about evidence and address any concerns raised.”
Few members of Congress, however, seemed sympathetic to that argument — and it’s the potential for future abuse by foreign actors that has seemingly daunted lawmakers the most. Congress has been wrong-footed before by introducing data protection laws in the wake of American-made social media scandals such as the Wall Street Journal reporting on the Facebook files.
“With great respect, US social companies do not have a good track record in data privacy and user security.”
“These tools are very, very powerful,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The edge on Wednesday, describing how social media can be used to enable foreign-influenced operations. ‘I’m not saying they’re doing it now. But why wait for President Xi and China to say, ‘I’m ready to pull the trigger and invade Taiwan’?”
Earlier this month, Warner introduced the RESTRICT Act, a bipartisan-backed bill that would give the Secretary of Commerce the authority to investigate and prohibit the use of technologies originating from hostile countries. At least 18 senators across both parties and the Biden administration have spoken in favor of the bill.
Yet there is a growing coalition of House Democrats who oppose legislation that could ban TikTok. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) held a press conference with about 30 TikTok influencers opposing a federal ban. It was one of the first times a lawmaker had been so publicly in favor of TikTok. Surrounded by activist signs calling on Congress to use #KeepTikTok, Bowman attributed much of the app’s criticism to xenophobia.
“Usually when there’s a national security issue, they hold a bipartisan briefing on that particular issue,” Bowman said Wednesday. “We have not received a bipartisan congressional briefing on TikTok’s national security risk.”
Even without overwhelming evidence of its potential to harm national security, TikTok’s reputation isn’t spotless. A number of reports have detailed examples of ByteDance employees falsely accessing US user data, including the IP addresses of US journalists. TikTok admitted to the latest scandal, claiming that the employees “abused their authority”.
But it had not escaped Chew’s attention that US companies have made similar mistakes in the past. “With great respect, US social companies do not have a good track record in data privacy and user security,” Chew said. “Just look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.”
In the case of Cambridge Analytica, Facebook settled with the Federal Trade Commission for $5 billion. The scandal sparked a legislative debate over a federal data privacy network. Years later, Congress has yet to approve any meaningful data protections for U.S. or foreign-owned social media companies.
As of today, however, a TikTok ban is closer than ever before.