TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew stated the Chinese-owned quick video app firm faces a pivotal second as a rising variety of US lawmakers search to ban the favored app over nationwide safety considerations.
Chew stated in a video posted on TikTok early Tuesday the app now has greater than 150 million energetic month-to-month US customers. “That’s almost half the US coming to TikTok,” Chew stated. TikTok in 2020 stated it had 100 million US customers.
Chew, who will testify Thursday earlier than the House Energy and Commerce Committee, stated: “Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok.”
“Now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you,” he stated in the video that options the US Capitol in the background.
He requested TikTok customers to depart feedback about what they wished US lawmakers to learn about “what you love about TikTok.”
Chew additionally stated 5 million US companies use TikTok to succeed in clients.
TikTok’s critics worry its US person knowledge may very well be handed on to China’s authorities by the app, which is owned by the Chinese tech firm ByteDance. TikTok rejects the spying allegations.
TikTok additionally stated Tuesday it had up to date its group use pointers and provided extra particulars of its plans to safe the information of US customers. The firm stated it had began to delete this month US person protected knowledge in knowledge facilities in Virginia and Singapore after it began routing new US knowledge to the Oracle Cloud final 12 months.
Last week, TikTok stated the Biden administration demanded that TikTok’s Chinese homeowners divest their stake in the app or it might face a US ban.
TikTok, which has stated it has spent greater than $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 12,396 crore) on rigorous knowledge safety efforts, stated “if protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access.”
A rising variety of US lawmakers assist a ban on TikTok. This consists of Energy and Commerce Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, congressional aides informed reporters on a name Monday. On Friday, six extra US senators backed bipartisan laws to provide Biden new powers to ban TikTok.
On March 1, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee voted alongside celebration traces to provide President Joe Biden new powers to ban TikTok.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
