TikTok CEO Shou Zi Che says before Congress that the company will never share US user's data with China.

Image Credit: Harvard University TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, appeared before Congress on Thursday. He was there because the U.S. government has been getting more aggressive lately, which makes TikTok's business difficult. Shou Zi Chew was very nervous during the hearing, but he managed to get through it. In her opening remarks, Chew gave assurances that the business would protect children's safety, strengthen its privacy and security procedures, and prevent any "unauthorized foreign access" to U.S. data relating to users. "... I recognize that there are worries based on the false notion that TikTok is a puppet of the Chinese government or that it disseminates information about American users who work for the Chinese government," said Chew. Chew added, “This is emphatically untrue.” Chew argued that TikTok never shared information about the U.S., nor has it ever been asked to do so by users of the Chinese government. Chew asserted that the company would not accede to China's request for access to American data. Chew said, “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country.” As the hearing progressed, lawmakers from both parties pressed Chew for information on the company's ties to China, its failure to censor disturbing material, and its strategies for fostering trust with the U. S. which is its largest market. TikTok took a page out of the recent playbook developed by companies like Meta and Google in response to the barrage of challenging questions by adopting a traditional tech hearing strategy. While Chew struck the audience as more relaxed and affable than some U.S. tech executives, one can claim that he repeatedly avoided providing meaningful responses to difficult questions and overstated some of the company's accomplishments. Several representatives emphasized TikTok's effect on young users. Chew praised the 60-minute time limit for teen users of the app. The company's claims about its defenses against social media addiction were brought back to reality by Rep. John Sarbanes. Chew took to the app and declared that TikTok now has more than 150 million users in the U.S., a significant increase over the figures it previously provided. The achievement has two effects: it raises questions about TikTok's enormous popularity among Americans and poses a risk that U.S. users and creators would both be incensed by a ban. At least one group of artists is protesting the proposed ban in Washington, D.C. this week, highlighting the detrimental effect it would have on their businesses. The committee asked Chew about measures TikTok is taking to protect kids on the app, and they were worried that the company is owned by ByteDance, which is based in China. They also worried that the Chinese government could use TikTok to further its own interests. Image Credit: Naked Security Although there is no proof that China is collecting data on Americans or purposefully influencing political behavior through its algorithms, there is cause for concern about the firm's privacy practices. Someone at the company found out that some of their employees were trying to track down the source of leaks by looking at the journalists' TikTok videos. This led to investigations from multiple federal agencies, and the Fraud Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division is working with the FBI and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to try and find out who was responsible for the privacy breach. This is putting a lot of pressure on the company's U.S. business. The U.S. is not sure if it can follow through with its threats, but it's not clear what it could do if it did. The White House tried a similar tactic during the Trump administration, but it failed. Former President Trump threatened to push ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to Oracle, but that plan eventually fizzled too. Oracle never bought the company, but it is still involved in it. TikTok later partnered with Oracle to help shift data and run audits of its algorithms and content moderation systems. This is an odd move, given that Larry Ellison is involved in a campaign to undermine the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Thursday's TikTok was explosive in form even when it was not in function, given the stakes for the company and its users as well as politicians' propensity for stirring up anti-China sentiment. The hearing on Thursday was more bark than bite.