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      Montana becomes first US state to ban TikTok

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      Montana has became the first US state to ban TikTok after the governor signed legislation prohibiting mobile application stores from offering the app within the state by next year.The move is among the most dramatic in a series of US escalations against TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance. TikTok has come under increasing scrutiny over its ties to China, amid concerns that such links could pose a national security threat.The federal government, and more than half of US states, have prohibited the app on government devices and the Biden administration has threatened a national ban unless its parent company sells its shares.The company has previously denied that it has ever shared data with the Chinese government and has said the company would not do so if asked.TikTok said in a statement that the Montana bill “infringes on the first amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok”, and that the company intends to “defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana”.In March, TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, was forced to defend his company’s relationship with China at a bipartisan congressional hearing, with lawmakers also grilling the CEO on the social network’s impact on the mental health of young people.TikTok is one of the world’s most popular social networks with more than 100 million US users, and questions remain about how such bans will be enforced and what their impact will be on creators who use the platform.Montana’s new law, which will take effect 1 January, prohibits downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any “entity” – an app store or TikTok – $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users.Montana’s ban is expected to face legal challenges, and will serve as a testing ground for the TikTok-free America that many national lawmakers have envisioned.Gianforte also prohibited the use of all social media applications that collect and provide personal information or data to foreign adversaries on government-issued devices. Among the apps he listed are WeChat, whose parent company is headquartered in China; and Telegram Messenger, which was founded in Russia.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOpponents consider the measure to be government overreach and say Montana residents could easily circumvent the ban by using a virtual private network, a service that shields internet users by encrypting their data traffic, preventing others from observing their web browsing. Meanwhile, internet freedom advocates and others have criticized the US crackdown as amounting to censorship.Keegan Medrano, policy director for the ACLU of Montana, said the legislature “trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information and run their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment”.NetChoice, a trade group that counts Google and TikTok as its members, called the bill unconstitutional.“This is a clear violation of the constitution, which prohibits the government from blocking Americans from accessing constitutionally-protected speech online via websites or apps,” Carl Szabo, who serves as the group’s vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. More

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      TikTok must divest itself of Chinese ownership or face ban, FCC commissioner tells Australian inquiry

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      TikTok will either need to divest itself from Chinese ownership or face a ban in the United States, according to the commissioner of the US federal communications commission, Brendan Carr, who accused the company of “gaslighting” the public on surveillance concerns.Appearing before the Australian Senate inquiry into foreign influence through social media, the Trump appointee said concern about TikTok in the US was “broad and deep”, and crossed party lines.Following the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries’ ban of the app from government devices, the US is considering a full ban nationally. Legislation enacting a statewide ban was recently passed in Montana.TikTok has attempted to head off any potential ban by moving US user data to third-party servers within the country. It is also allowing its source code to be scrutinised by US tech firm Oracle, which will screen TikTok app updates.Carr told the committee while that was ultimately an issue being handled by the US Treasury department, there was a common view among Democrats and Republicans that the data could not be prevented from being accessed by Chinese government officials under the 2017 national security law.Carr, the most senior Republican member on the FCC, said only an outright ban of the app in the United States or removing all corporate ties to China would be acceptable.“Ultimately, I think some sort of … legislation that imposes a ban or a genuine divestiture is the way forward right now,” he said.“The argument that somehow TikTok is going to stand up to the CCP is belied by their inability to do it at any point in time publicly. For instance, when asked in US media interviews, whether they acknowledge the existence of the Uyghur genocide, their official on TV refused to address it.”Carr said that a Project Texas plan might work for other Chinese companies, but TikTok’s actions to date meant there was no trust for the United States.“We’ve had this years-long approach that strikes me is nothing short of a gaslighting in terms of their misrepresentations,” he said.A spokesperson for TikTok said divestment wouldn’t solve the problem if national security is the objective.“A change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access. The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, US-based protection of US user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing.”The Australian government has announced no plans beyond the ban of TikTok from government devices, but the Coalition is likely to push the Labor government for more restrictions on the app.The chair of the inquiry and shadow home affairs minister, senator James Paterson, opened the hearing by saying that the inquiry would serve as a starting point on making Australians a harder target for foreign interference.“We cannot allow foreign authoritarian regimes to have unfettered access to the devices of millions of Australians and the powerful opportunity that offers them to influence our democracy,” he said. “The work starts today to make us a harder target against the threat of cyber enabled foreign interference.”TikTok this week issued a factcheck on claims made about the app, and denied that Australian user data could be accessed in China.The inquiry is holding initial hearings on Thursday and Friday, and is due to report back to parliament in August. More

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      As the west tries to limit TikTok’s reach, what about China’s other apps?

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      As TikTok, the world’s most popular app, comes under increasing scrutiny in response to data privacy and security concerns, lawmakers in the west may soon set their sights on other Chinese platforms that have gone global.TikTok was built by ByteDance as a foreign version of its popular domestic video-sharing platform, Douyin. But it is far from being ByteDance’s only overseas moneymaker. The Chinese company owns dozens of apps that are available overseas, many of them English-language versions of Chinese offerings.CapCut is a video-editing app that is used by TikTok creators, while Lark is a workplace collaboration platform. Other apps, particularly e-commerce platforms such as Shein, have become hugely popular in the US and the UK.The US Congress is now considering the introduction of the Restrict Act, which would give the commerce department the power to ban TikTok and other apps that pose national security risks. Because the main concern about Chinese apps is that they are subject to interference from the Chinese Communist party, many household names could soon be in the line of fire.CapCutCapCut is the Chinese version of ByteDance’s JianYing. It was the fourth-most downloaded app globally in 2022, behind TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp, according to Statista, which analyses market and consumer data.Despite the security concerns over TikTok, governments have said little about CapCut. India’s government is an outlier, banning the app in 2020 along with a host of others made by Chinese companies.First released in April 2020, CapCut has been downloaded more than 500m times on the Google Play store globally. On Apple devices, it was downloaded 25m times just last month, according to data analysts Sensor Tower. At times in 2021, CapCut was the most downloaded free app in the US.LarkLark, a workplace collaboration platform, launched in 2019. Its Chinese version is called Feishu, but the two platforms operate and store data separately, with Lark being managed from Singapore.It has already launched in the US, south-east Asia and Japan, and has plans to expand into Europe. Its target audience is multinational companies that work with China, or Chinese companies working overseas.Lark combines elements of Slack, Dropbox, Google Docs and Skype. It is a minnow compared with ByteDance’s other products, but is part of a strategy to diversify the company’s offering.Now, however, Lark’s future looks uncertain. It explicitly deals with the kind of proprietary data that western lawmakers and companies would want to keep secure. Ivy Yang, a China tech analyst who previously worked for tech firm Alibaba, said that, for years, Chinese apps pursued a strategy of developing “under the radar” before being discovered more widely. But, Yang said, “that trajectory has to shift because the American government doesn’t allow them to do that any more”.WeChatTencent’s WeChat – which has more than 1.1 billion users – is overwhelmingly used in China, where the all-encompassing app is essential for communications, bookings, finances, and even health monitoring during the pandemic.But it is popular in other countries, too, particularly for diaspora communities wanting to keep in touch with friends and family back in China. Disinformation is particularly rife on WeChat, in part because news spreads in private chat groups rather than on public feeds, so is harder to monitor.In 2022, it was downloaded more than 66m times in China, about 2.1m times in both the US and Indonesia, and more than 1m times in Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan.In September 2020, the then US president, Donald Trump, sought to ban WeChat and TikTok outright. This led to lawsuits and court-ordered stays on the ban, and in 2021 his successor, Joe Biden, withdrew Trump’s executive orders. Biden’s administration also launched national security reviews of apps created by companies with links to adversarial foreign governments such as China.WeChat is a Chinese-made app also used in the west, unlike TikTok, CapCut and others, which are western versions of Chinese apps. In 2021, WeChat said it had separated processes for its domestic Chinese users and those who log in with a foreign phone number.But in September last year, overseas users received pop-up messages warning them that “personal data [including] likes, comments, browsing and search history, content uploads, etc” would be stored on Chinese servers.SheinShein, pronounced “shee-in”, is the world’s largest fashion retailer. Founded in 2008 in Nanjing, last year it was the most-downloaded fashion and beauty app in the US, with more than 27m downloads, according to Statista.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionConsumers are turning to Shein because it is cheap. But, said Yang, it is also “a lot more fun”. Chinese e-commerce apps are “a lot more engaging”, with pop-ups offering discounts and deals to gamify the shopping experience.Despite the cheap prices, its revenues are huge. In 2022, it raked in $22.7bn (£18.2bn), putting it in the same league as established behemoths such as H&M and Zara. Rui Ma, a China tech analyst and investor, said that Shein’s core advantage was its supply chain. Unlike other fashion companies, Shein works directly with the material suppliers and factories, so it has a detailed understanding of its own pipeline. Ma said Shein’s inventory waste “is one-10th that of the industry average”, which allowed it to keep prices down.TemuTemu only launched in the US in September 2022, but by January this year it was the most popular app in the country. The e-commerce platform sells everything from wireless earphones for $5.09 to a cat’s toothbrush for $0.44.Its inventory is a core part of its business model: it prioritises lightweight products to reduce cargo costs, and ships to consumers directly from factories in China. This allows it to offer rock-bottom prices. It also requires vendors to offer products that are not available on other platforms.It is a subsidiary of PDD Holdings Inc, a Chinese company that also owns the Chinese internet retailer Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo is the dark horse of the Chinese e-commerce market. Despite being much younger than Alibaba and JD.com, which dominate the industry, Pinduoduo has about 15% of the market share. Ma said PDD had “a team that is really good at execution, and they’re taking a lot of the Chinese advantages, and their knowhow, into expanding abroad”.Yang also notes that with US consumers being increasingly cash-strapped, they are willing to wait longer – Temu’s delivery times can be one to two weeks – for cheaper products. That is a challenge for US giants such as Amazon, which have prioritised speed of delivery above all else.AliExpressLast year AliExpress, the online marketplace of the tech giant Alibaba, was the third-most popular marketplace app in the UK, with 1m downloads, behind Amazon and eBay. Rather than working directly with factories, it connects small businesses in China with consumers around the world to sell cheap products, often in bulk.However, despite being backed by China’s leading e-commerce platform, AliExpress has failed to catch on in the west as successfully as newer rivals such as Temu and Shein. Yang said part of the reason for this was that it didn’t have the “laser focus” of its competitors. Yang said that AliExpress “was never really under pressure to thrive” in the west because Alibaba already had so many arms to its business, including Taobao, for shopping, and Alipay, a mobile payments system that is ubiquitous in China.What’s next for Chinese apps?In theory, many of the accusations that have been levelled against TikTok – such as that it is bad for children’s mental health or engages in censorship of political topics – should be less applicable to other Chinese apps that are popular in the west. Fast fashion and cheap cosmetics are less controversial than algorithmically delivered content that is seen as shaping young minds. And shopping apps like Temu and Shein are dependent on physical supply chains, so they are less able to change or mask their Chinese links.But US lawmakers have warned that any Chinese-owned apps could be vulnerable to data privacy breaches or interference from the Chinese Communist party.Some analysts have pointed out that the US does not have comprehensive data privacy laws, meaning that users of any apps have little control over how their data is used.Ma said: “It doesn’t make much sense to me that a shopping app is going to be put on the same level [of scrutiny] as a media app. But my view is that it’s not going to stop anyone from trying.” More

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      White House ‘very in favor’ of bill thought to target TikTok

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      One of the authors of a Senate bill that would enable the federal commerce department to ban technologies with links to foreign governments has said that the Joe Biden White House is “very in favor” of the measure, but he stopped short of saying whether the president’s administration has discussed possibly prohibiting the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok in particular.Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said that the proposed legislation has also picked up support in his congressional chamber from 11 Democrats – of which he is one – as well as 11 Republicans.“I think the White House is very in favor of this bill,” said Warner, chairperson of the Senate’s select committee on intelligence. Without saying whether Biden’s administration would push for these steps to be taken against TikTok, Warner added: “We [would] give the secretary of commerce the tools to ban, to force a sale.”TikTok has drawn close congressional scrutiny because the data of users on the popular video sharing platform could be available to the government of China, the US’s rival global superpower. The Chinese firm ByteDance owns TikTok, and Warner said laws in China require the owner company to make user data accessible to the country’s ruling Communist party.Some lawmakers have advocated for a blanket ban of TikTok, which is headquartered in San Jose. But one of the other responses from Capitol Hill has been for Warner and the Republican South Dakota senator John Thune to draft and rally support for what is known as the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Act.Also known as the Restrict Act, the measure would authorize the Oval Office – through the commerce department – to review technologies which arrive from abroad. The commerce department could then move to ban those technologies or seek to force their sale, depending on any review’s findings.As with all such bills, the proposal would need approval from both congressional chambers as well as the president’s signature to become law. Democrats and the independents who caucus with them have a 51-49 advantage in the Senate where the Restrict Act has drawn support from both sides of the political aisle. Republicans hold a slight numerical edge in the House of Representatives.Warner’s remarks on Sunday came three days after TikTok’s chief executive officer, Shou Zi Chew, spent five hours publicly answering questions from members of the US House. As he testified, Chew defended TikTok’s relationship with China, saying the country’s rulers had never asked for user information and that the platform wouldn’t comply with such a request.“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said during the occasionally testy session, at which he also tried to assuage concerns about how the platform affects the mental health of its youngest users.Warner on Sunday said he was not impressed with Chew’s performance in front of lawmakers.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“While I appreciated Mr Chew’s testimony, he just couldn’t answer the basic questions,” Warner said. “At the end of the day, TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, … and by Chinese law, that company has to be willing to turn over data.”Appearing separately on CNN’s State of the Union, Washington congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers – who is chairperson of the House’s energy and commerce committee – argued that TikTok could not be trusted despite Chew’s testimony. The Republican congresswoman called TikTok an “immediate threat” and said it deserved to get banned in the US.Though not directly related to TikTok, US fears about Chinese government surveillance reached a fever pitch after American fighter jets shot down a China-owned spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on 4 February. The US was later reportedly investigating whether strong winds had blown the balloon off course after it took off from China’s Hainan Island and ultimately entered US airspace. More

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      Key takeaways from TikTok hearing in Congress – and the uncertain road ahead

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      The first appearance in Congress for TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew stretched more than five hours, with contentious questioning targeting the app’s relationship with China and protections for its youngest users.Chew’s appearance comes at a pivotal time for TikTok, which is facing bipartisan fire after experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years. The company is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, raising concerns about China’s influence over the app – criticisms Chew repeatedly tried to resist throughout the hearing.“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” he said in prepared testimony.He defended TikTok’s privacy practices, stating they are are in line with those of other social media platforms, adding that in many cases the app collects less data than its peers. “There are more than 150 million Americans who love our platform, and we know we have a responsibility to protect them,” Chew said.Here are some of the other key criticisms Chew faced at Thursday’s landmark hearing, and what could lie ahead.TikTok’s relationship to China under fireMany members of the committee focused on ByteDance and its executives, who lawmakers say have ties to the Chinese Communist party.The committee members asked how frequently Chew was in contact with them, and questioned whether the company’s proposed solution, called Project Texas, would offer sufficient protection against Chinese laws that require companies to make user data accessible to the government.At one point, Tony Cárdenas, a Democrat from California, asked Chew outright if TikTok is a Chinese company. Chew responded that TikTok is global in nature, not available in mainland China, and headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles.Neal Dunn, a Republican from Florida, asked with similar bluntness whether ByteDance has “spied on American citizens” – a question that came amid reports the company accessed journalists’ information in an attempt to identify which employees were leaking information. Chew responded that “spying is not the right way to describe it”.Concerns about the viability of ‘Project Texas’In an effort to deflect concerns about Chinese influence, TikTok has pledged to relocate all US user data to domestic servers through an effort titled Project Texas, a plan that would also allow US tech firm Oracle to scrutinize TikTok’s source code and act as a third-party monitor.The company has promised to complete the effort by the end of the year, but some lawmakers questioned whether that is possible, with hundreds of millions of lines of source code requiring review in a relatively short amount of time.“I am concerned that what you’re proposing with Project Texas just doesn’t have the technical capability of providing us the assurances that we need,” the California Republican Jay Obernolte, a congressman and software engineer, said.Youth safety and mental health in the spotlightAnother frequent focus was the safety of TikTok’s young users, considering the app has exploded in popularity with this age group in recent years. A majority of teens in the US say they use TikTok – with 67% of people aged 13 to 17 saying they have used the app and 16% of that age group saying they use it “almost constantly”, according to the Pew Research Center.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLawmakers cited reports that drug-related content has spread on the app, allowing teens to purchase dangerous substances easily online. Chew said such content violates TikTok policy and that they are removed when identified.“We take this very seriously,” Chew said. “This is an industry-wide challenge, and we’re investing as much as we can. We don’t think it represents the majority of the users’ experience on TikTok, but it does happen.”Others cited self-harm and eating disorder content, which have been spreading on the platform. TikTok is also facing lawsuits over deadly “challenges” that have gone viral on the app. Mental health concerns were underscored at the hearing by the appearance of Dean and Michelle Nasca, the parents of a teen who died by suicide after allegedly being served unsolicited self-harm content on TikTok.“We need you to do your part,” said congresswoman Kim Schrier, who is a pediatrician. “It could save this generation.”Uncertainty lingers over a possible banThe federal government has already barred TikTok on government devices, and the Biden administration has threatened a national ban. Thursday’s hearing left the future of the app in the US uncertain, as members of the committee appeared unwavering in their conviction that TikTok was a tool that could be exploited by the Chinese Communist party. Their conviction was bolstered by a report in the Wall Street Journal, released just hours before the hearing, indicating the Chinese government would not approve a sale of TikTok.Lawmakers outside of the committee are also unconvinced. US senators Mark Warner and John Thune said in a statement that all Chinese companies “are ultimately required to do the bidding of Chinese intelligence services, should they be called upon to do so” and that nothing Chew said in his testimony assuaged those concerns. Colorado senator Michael Bennet also reiterated calls for an all-out ban of TikTok.But the idea of a national ban still faces huge hurdles, both legally and in the court of public opinion. For one, previous attempts to ban TikTok under the Trump administration was blocked in court due in part to free speech concerns. TikTok also remains one of the fastest growing and most popular apps in the US and millions of its users are unlikely to want to give it up.A coalition of civil liberties, privacy and security groups including Fight for the Future, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the American Civil Liberties Union have written a letter opposing a ban, arguing that it would violate constitutional rights to freedom of expression. “A nationwide ban on TikTok would have serious ramifications for free expression in the digital sphere, infringing on Americans’ first amendment rights and setting a potent and worrying precedent in a time of increased censorship of internet users around the world,” the letter reads.Where the coalition and many members of the House committee agree is on the pressing need for federal data privacy regulation that protects consumer information and reins in all big tech platforms, including TikTok. The American Data Privacy Act – a bipartisan bill working its way through Washington – is one effort under way to address those concerns. More

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      TikTok CEO grilled for over five hours on China, drugs and teen mental health

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      The chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, was forced to defend his company’s relationship with China, as well as the protections for its youngest users, at a testy congressional hearing on Thursday that came amid a bipartisan push to ban the app entirely in the US over national security concerns.The hearing got off to an intense start, with members of the committee hammering on Chew’s connection to executives at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, whom lawmakers say have ties to the Chinese Communist party. The committee members asked how frequently Chew was in contact with them, and questioned whether the company’s proposed solution, called Project Texas, would offer sufficient protection against Chinese laws that require companies to make user data accessible to the government.Lawmakers have long held concerns over China’s control over the app, concerns Chew repeatedly tried to resist throughout the hearing. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” he said in prepared testimony.But Chew’s claims of independence were undermined by a Wall Street Journal story published just hours before the hearing that said China would strongly oppose any forced sale of the company. Responding for the first time to Joe Biden’s threat of a national ban unless ByteDance sells its shares, the Chinese commerce ministry said such a move would involve exporting technology from China and thus would have to be approved by the Chinese government.Lawmakers also questioned Chew over the platform’s impact on mental health, particularly of its young users. The Republican congressman Gus Bilirakis shared the story of Chase Nasca, a 16-year-old boy who died by suicide a year ago by stepping in front of a train. Nasca’s parents, who have sued ByteDance, claiming Chase was “targeted” with unsolicited suicide-related content, appeared at the hearing and grew emotional as Bilirakis told their son’s story.“I want to thank his parents for being here today, and allowing us to show this,” Bilirakis said. “Mr Chew, your company destroyed their lives.”Driving home concerns about young users, Congresswoman Nanette Barragán asked Chew about reports that he does not let his own children use the app.“At what age do you think it would be appropriate for a young person to get on TikTok?” she said.Chew confirmed his own children were not on TikTok but said that was because in Singapore, where they live, there is not a version of the platform for users under the age of 13. In the US there is a version of TikTok in which the content is curated for a users under 13.“Our approach is to give differentiated experiences for different age groups, and let the parents have conversations with their children to decide what’s best for their family,” he said.The appearance of Chew before the House energy and commerce committee, the first ever by a TikTok chief executive, represents a major test for the 40-year-old, who has remained largely out of the spotlight.Throughout the hearing, Chew stressed TikTok’s distance from the Chinese government, kicking off his testimony with an emphasis on his own Singaporean heritage. Chew talked about Project Texas – an effort to move all US data to domestic servers – and said the company was deleting all US user data that is backed up to servers outside the US by the end of the year.Some legislators expressed that Project Texas was too large an undertaking, and would not tackle concerns about US data privacy soon enough. “I am concerned that what you’re proposing with Project Texas just doesn’t have the technical capability of providing us the assurances that we need,” the California Republican Jay Obernolte, a software engineer, said.At one point, Tony Cárdenas, a Democrat from California, asked Chew outright if TikTok is a Chinese company. Chew responded that TikTok is global in nature, not available in mainland China, and headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles.Neal Dunn, a Republican from Florida, asked with similar bluntness whether ByteDance has “spied on American citizens” – a question that came amid reports the company accessed journalists’ information in an attempt to identify which employees were leaking information. Chew responded that “spying is not the right way to describe it”.The hearing comes three years after TikTok was formally targeted by the Trump administration with an executive order prohibiting US companies from doing business with ByteDance. Biden revoked that order in June 2021, under the stipulation that the US committee on foreign investment conduct a review of the company. When that review stalled, Biden demanded TikTok sell its Chinese-owned shares or face a ban in the US.This bipartisan nature of the backlash was remarked upon several times during the hearing, with Cárdenas pointing out that Chew “has been one of the few people to unite this committee”.Chew’s testimony, some lawmakers said, was reminiscent of Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance in an April 2018 hearing to answer for his own platform’s data-privacy issues – answers many lawmakers were unsatisfied with. Cárdenas said: “We are frustrated with TikTok … and yes, you keep mentioning that there are industry issues that not only TikTok faces but others. You remind me a lot of [Mark] Zuckerberg … when he came here, I said he reminds me of Fred Astaire: a good dancer with words. And you are doing the same today. A lot of your answers are a bit nebulous, they’re not yes or no.”Chew, a former Goldman Sachs banker who has helmed the company since March 2021, warned users in a video posted to TikTok earlier in the week that the company was at a “pivotal moment”.“Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok,” he said, adding that the app now has more than 150 million active monthly US users. “That’s almost half the US coming to TikTok.”TikTok has battled legislative headwinds since its meteoric rise began in 2018. Today, a majority of teens in the US say they use TikTok – with 67% of people ages 13 to 17 saying they have used the app and 16% of that age group saying they use it “almost constantly”, according to the Pew Research Center.This has raised a number of concerns about the app’s impact on young users’ safety, with self-harm and eating disorder-related content spreading on the platform. TikTok is also facing lawsuits over deadly “challenges” that have gone viral on the app.TikTok has introduced features in response to such criticisms, including automatic time limits for users under 18.Some tech critics have said that while TikTok’s data collection does raise concerns, its practices are not much different from those of other big tech firms.“Holding TikTok and China accountable are steps in the right direction, but doing so without holding other platforms accountable is simply not enough,” said the Tech Oversight Project, a technology policy advocacy organization, in a statement.“Lawmakers and regulators should use this week’s hearing as an opportunity to re-engage with civil society organizations, NGOs, academics and activists to squash all of big tech’s harmful practices.” More

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      TikTok’s CEO eluded the spotlight. Now, a looming ban means he can’t avoid it

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      Shou Zi Chew is not a prolific TikToker. The 40-year-old CEO of the Chinese-owned app has just 23 posts and 17,000 followers to his name – paltry by his own platform’s standards.Chew’s profile sees him attending football games, visiting Paris and London, trying Nashville hot chicken, or boating on a lake, often with generic captions. (“Love the outdoors!”). Users have noticed: “Bro the TikTok ceo with 41 likes,” one person commented on his video of the outdoors. “Shout out to this small creator,” another wrote.Suffice to say, Chew is not an influencer. But his influence over one of the world’s fastest growing, most popular and – some say – most dangerous social networks is under increasing scrutiny.On Thursday Chew will appear before a US congressional committee, answering to lawmakers’ concerns over the Chinese government’s access to US user data, as well as TikTok’s impact on the mental health of its younger user base. The stakes are high, coming amid a crackdown on TikTok from the US to Europe. In the past few months alone, the US has banned TikTok on federal government devices, following similar moves by multiple states’ governments, and the Biden administration has threatened a national ban unless its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, sells its shares.It’s one of the biggest tests yet for the Harvard business alumnus, who counts stints at the consumer electronics giant Xiaomi, Yuri Milner’s investment firm DST and Goldman Sachs on his resume, and has only been in the TikTok job since May 2021.Chew’s low-key online presence is reflective of his public profile. In the two years since becoming CEO, Chew remained relatively quiet even as TikTok was thrust into the spotlight. Save for select interviews he operates largely in the background, staying under the radar as the company promises regulators increased transparency. There’s a lot riding on Chew’s first congressional appearance, which might explain why, in recent months, he’s been on a publicity tour. In addition to various interviews, Chew has been quietly meeting with lawmakers as he gears up for his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.Chew has also worked to mobilize the platform’s US user base. In a video posted to the TikTok main account, Chew warned that “some politicians” could take the app away from “all 150 million of you” and asked people to share what they love about using the video-sharing service in the comments.Over the past year, the company has attempted to address some lawmakers’ concerns about both data security and teen mental health. TikTok says it spent more than $1.5bn on security efforts and started the process of deleting the US user data that was backed up to its storage centers in Virginia and Singapore after it started routing all US traffic through Oracle-owned servers in the US. The company also recently announced it was limiting screen time for its under-18 users to one hour.But it’s unclear how much he stands to change lawmakers’ minds, especially as bipartisan efforts to appear tough on China gain momentum, making it difficult for him to find allies in either party.Regulatory pressure growsBy the time Chew took over in May 2021, he had his work cut out for him. The now seven-year-old company had already gone through two CEOs in just one year – Kevin Mayer, who ran the company for three months, and Vanessa Pappas, who served as a temporary global head before Chew replaced her. TikTok was seeing explosive growth, boasting 150 million users just in the US, but also increased regulatory pressure over potential ties to the Chinese government.Though Chew has not formally worked at TikTok for very long, he has been involved with its parent company since its early days. Chew was an early investor in ByteDance, founded in 2012, before it began to develop short-form video apps, according to an interview with David Rubenstein, the founder of private investment firm and ByteDance investor the Carlyle Group.Chew, whose promotion to CEO landed him a spot on Fortune’s 40 under 40 list in 2021, joined the ranks of tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk at a time when people in those roles, once the subject of unadulterated adoration and hero worship, had become the subject of ire and disillusionment.While his lack of public persona may have largely saved him from personal scrutiny, it could hinder his attempts at making inroads among lawmakers and members of the public who have become wary of Chinese surveillance.“The mystery of ByteDance and TikTok and the uncertainty around whether they are doing anything that’s unscrupulous is part of the problem,” said Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and founder of the industry newsletter and podcast Geekout. “So [Chew’s] lack of profile and lack of awareness of who he is may be a blessing, but also it might be a downfall given people want to understand TikTok and ByteDance to understand what the level of risk is.”Within months of joining, Chew started working to combat those concerns. In June 2021, Chew wrote a letter to lawmakers, reiterating the company’s commitment to transparency and emphasizing the company was run by him, “a Singaporean based in Singapore” and not China-based ByteDance.Nearly two years later, those conversations appear to have deteriorated, and even appeals to individual lawmakers have not assuaged fears.Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat of Colorado who called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores in February, met with Chew last month but said he was still worried about the national security risks of the app and the “poisonous influence of TikTok’s algorithms on teen mental health”.“Mr Chew and I had a frank conversation,” Bennet said in a statement. “But I remain fundamentally concerned that TikTok, as a Chinese-owned company, is subject to dictates from the Chinese Communist party and poses an unacceptable risk to US national security.”Into the hot seatIt’s not the first time US lawmakers have grilled TikTok, but it will be Chew’s first time in the hot seat. In September 2022, battling national security concerns over whether ByteDance may be giving the Chinese government access to US user data, TikTok’s chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas testified in front of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, contending there is no basis for concern and that TikTok is working to minimize how much data non-US employees can access.Chew, who once interned at Facebook, has echoed the same sentiment since he started at TikTok: the company is not beholden to the Chinese government. “TikTok has never shared … US user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made,” Chew will say on Thursday, according to written testimony posted ahead of the hearing.In the past, Chew has pointed out that while ByteDance is based in China, TikTok itself is not available for download in China and all US user data is stored in Virginia with a backup in Singapore.Though the US government has offered no evidence that the Chinese government has accessed user data from TikTok, their concerns about the security of consumer information in the hands of the company aren’t unfounded. ByteDance employees have reportedly accessed US user data, and the Department of Justice and the FBI have launched an investigation into allegations that some ByteDance employees had obtained TikTok user data to investigate the source of leaks to US journalists.Several civil liberties and privacy advocates argue banning TikTok would amount to censorship, and that concerns over data security would be best addressed through a federal privacy regulation that limits how much user data all tech companies can collect and share with government agencies and third parties. The argument appears to have fallen flat and industry experts appear skeptical there is much Chew could say to assuage lawmakers’ concerns.“It’ll be interesting to see how believable and authentic he comes across or how rehearsed those answers [to Congress] are,” Navarra said. “I think that TikTok has to come in and tell these lawmakers something they haven’t already heard. Because if they don’t then the likelihood of banning is certainly gonna increase.” More