‘Not an agent of China,’ TikTok CEO to tell Congress [Read full testimony]
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has published the written testimony to be given Thursday by TikTolk CEO Shout Zi Chew.
“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew will tell the committee, “it is not owned or controlled by any government or state entity.”
“Having met with a number of members of the Committee in recent weeks, the concerns that I have heard fall primarily into four categories: minor safety, data privacy and security, real-world harms from online activities, and the risk of foreign content manipulation. I would like to address each of these in turn…”
“There are more than 150 million Americans who love our platform, and we know we have a responsibility to protect them, which is why I’m making the following commitments to you and our users:
- We will keep safety – particularly for teenagers – a top priority for us;
- We will firewall-protected U.S. user data from unauthorized foreign access;
- TikTok will remain a platform for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government;
- We will be transparent and give access to third-party independent monitors to remain accountable for our commitments.“
Read a pdf of the full testimony here.
MORE: TikTok CEO warns of looming U.S. ban in new video
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.
