Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Sunday that his chamber would be moving forward with legislation to ban the controversial video app TikTok.
The move was expected after testimony from Singapore-based TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday failed to convince lawmakers that TikTok had separated from its China-based parent company ByteDance and wouldn’t pose a national security risk.
He then said that while currently some U.S. users’ data remains overseas, TikTok has launched data security efforts under the name “Project Texas” as it works to migrate U.S. user data to storage by Oracle Corp. in Texas.
“The House will be moving forward with legislation to protect Americans from the technological tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party.”
“We are also concerned that the PRC could require ByteDance to censor certain contexts of TikTok or spread information that undermines U.S. national security.”
Over 150 million Americans, mostly youth, actively use the video app, while TikTok has approximately 1 billion users worldwide.
Closer to a Ban
The chair of the House select committee on U.S. competition with China, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), said that lawmakers were actually closer to enforcing a ban or forced sale thanks to Chew’s concerning testimony.“They’ve actually united Republicans and Democrats out of the concern of allowing the [Chinese Communist Party] to control the most dominant media platform in America,” he told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday.
“TikTok did itself no favors on Thursday when CEO Shou Zi Chew gave his testimony,” committee ranking member Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) wrote on Twitter. “In fact, some of the answers he gave only raised more questions about the enormous existing security risks I’ve been fighting to address.”
The Great Translation Movement, which monitors media reports in both the English and Chinese languages for differences and disinformation campaigns, pointed out that Chew was not being transparent with Congress in his testimony.
But the movement noted that the spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce had already declared in response to Biden’s demand that ByteDance sell TikTok that such an action must first get approval from the CCP.
Chew had also asserted that ByteDance “is a private company.”
The law was a major factor driving governments around the world to place bans on Chinese telecommunications companies like Huawei and ZTE getting contracts to participate in new 5G networks.
Battle to Control Information
Much of TikTok’s own discussion around risks has been focused on data privacy issues, with the company saying it is already addressing further data security issues in its initiative called “Project Texas,” in which TikTok’s U.S. user data is being migrated and contained to Texas-based data storage.But the more significant concern is the utility of TikTok to be used by the CCP to influence the narratives that Americans are exposed to, Gallagher said.
He noted that the biggest concern was over who has control over information.
“The key part that’s missing from Project Texas’ mitigation strategy is control of the algorithm. That’s really what we need to address,” he said. “It’s not just exfiltrating data from an American phone, it’s what they’re able to push to Americans through the algorithm—control our sense of reality, control the news, meddle in future elections.”
Ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) agreed, saying that despite all the promises to give U.S. company Oracle in Texas the ability to access TikTok’s algorithms for inspection: “I still believe that the Beijing Communist government will still control and have the ability to influence what you do. So this idea, this Project Texas, is simply not acceptable.”
Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University, told “Real Time With Bill Maher” on Friday night that TikTok was a defense threat that “should absolutely be banned.”
“Well, imagine a brain jack inserted into the neural network of two-thirds of our youth under the age of 25, who spend more time on TikTok than every other media source combined. And then imagine how easy with would be to put your thumb on the scale of anti-American content and recognise that they would be stupid not to elegantly, insidiously, covertly, raise a generation of American civic, non-profit, military, and government leaders who, day-by-day, minute-by-minute, just feel a little [expletive] about America. If we had that tool in China, we would do the exact same thing.”
Chew himself noted in his testimony that TikTok is not available to users in mainland China.
People in China can only use a CCP-approved version of TikTok called Douyin, which is heavily censored. The CCP also maintains its great firewall to control all information people can access and engage with inside China.
Censorship
While TikTok has denied it has censored information upon request by the CCP, critics of the CCP say otherwise.Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who was dropped by the league for refusing to stay silent on the CCP’s human rights abuses, had his TikTok account banned for 12 days. The ban was lifted without explanation on the day of Chew’s testimony.
“We note that we put all of our research to TikTok for comment and verification. They refused to go on the record about the details of their China based infrastructure,” the report said.
