With increasing China's link in data leak on short-video making app, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Thursday was grilled by the US Congress. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before the US Congress over Chinese government's influence over TikTok's parent company ByteDance. During the confrontation, Chew faced hostile questioning from the committee and assured that the social media giant is taking "real action" to address the national security concerns of the US. There were multiple questions asked by the US Congress from Chrew including India's action on them. However, what raised everyone's eyebrows when Chew was asked point blank what ByteDance will do if China's government asks them to hand them over the data of Americans? Continue reading to know his answer-
Dan Crenshaw asked point blank, "China's 2017 National Intelligence law states very clearly that any organization or citizen shall support and corporate with State intelligence work in accordance with the law and maintain the secrecy of all knowledge of state intelligence.. In other words, ByteDance and also your TikTok employees that live in China they must cooperate with Chinese intelligence whenever they are called upon and if they are called upon they are bound to secrecy that would include you. So, Mr. Chew if the CCP tells ByteDance to turn over all data that TikTok has collected inside the U.S, do they have to according to Chinese law?"
Chew answers, "Congressman, First I am Singaporean..We understand this concern and in my opening statement I said we heard the concern, we did not try to avoid them or trivialize them. We have built something where we take the data and we put it out of reach. This is what we did, we put all the data out of reach (from CCP)."
Not satisfied by the answer, the Congressman said that ByteDance owns TikTok and if China owns ByteDance so by law then can do whatever they want and even keep it a secret (by Chinese law).
Chew reiterated, "Data is here, on American soil by an American company."
Chew on India banning TikTok
During the line of questioning, US Lawmaker Debbie Lesko raised the issue of TikTok being recently banned in India and other countries. "This (TikTok) is a tool which is ultimately under the control of the Chinese government and screams out with national security concerns, how can all of these countries and our FBI director be wrong, Mr Chew?" asked Lesko.
In response Chew said, "I think a lot of risks pointed out are hypothetical and theoretical risks. I have not seen any evidence".
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Once again reiterating and stressing on the ban imposed by India, the Congresswoman stated "India banned TikTok in 2020. In March 2021, a Forbes article revealed how data of Indian citizens who used TikTok remained accessible to employees at the company. A current TikTok employee told Forbes that nearly anyone with basic access to company tools can easily look up the closest contact and other sensitive information about any user," Lesko informed her colleagues. Chew responded, "This article is recent and I have asked my team to look into it. We have rigorous data access protocols and there is no such thing as anybody can access the tools. So, I disagree with a lot of the conclusions".
Amid growing security concerns, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Thursday testified before the US Congress over potential Chinese government influence over the company. During the confrontation, Chew faced hostile questioning from the committee and assured that the social media giant is taking "real action" to address the national security concerns of the US.