As more U.S. politicians attempt to ban TikTok on national security concerns, CEO Shou Zi Chew said the Chinese-owned short video app faces a critical moment.
Chew announced on TikTok early Tuesday that the app had over 150 million active monthly U.S. users. “That’s practically half the U.S. going to TikTok,” Chew remarked. One hundred addition, a million Americans used TikTok in 2020.
“Some lawmakers have started talking about outlawing TikTok,” Chew told the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday.
“Now this might take TikTok away from all 150 million of you,” he stated in the video, which included the U.S. Capitol.
He invited people to tell U.S. politicians “what you love about TikTok.”
Chew claimed 5 million U.S. firms use TikTok to reach customers.
Critics of ByteDance-owned TikTok worry that the software may share U.S. user data with China. TikTok denies snooping.
TikTok revised its community usage standards and detailed its U.S. user data security procedures on Tuesday. After sending new U.S. data to the Oracle (ORCL.N) Cloud last year, the business began deleting user-protected data in Virginia and Singapore data centers this month.
This Monday, TikTok alleged the Biden administration asked that its Chinese owners sell their interest or risk a U.S. ban.
“If preserving national security is the aim, divestiture doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any additional constraints on data flows or access,” said TikTok, which has invested over $1.5 billion on data protection.
More U.S. legislators want TikTok banned. In a Monday teleconference, congressional officials told reporters that Energy and Commerce Committee head Cathy McMorris Rodgers is included. Six additional senators supported bipartisan TikTok prohibition legislation on Friday.
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, voted party-line to grant President Joe Biden greater powers to prohibit TikTok on March 1.
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