Watch stay: TikTok CEO grilled on Capitol Hill as platform faces potential US ban

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is being grilled Thursday on Capitol Hill as lawmakers search solutions concerning the well-liked video-sharing apps’ national security risks and ties to China.

The listening to started with scathing remarks from Home Vitality and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, (R-Wash.), who instantly expressed her assist for a TikTok ban whereas blasting the platform’s hyperlinks to the Chinese language Communist Celebration (CCP).

“We don’t belief TikTok will ever embrace American values,” McMorris Rodgers stated.

“TikTok has repeatedly chosen the trail for extra management, extra surveillance and extra manipulation. Your platform must be banned,” she added.

The chair additionally alleged that TikTok has “repeatedly been caught within the lie that it doesn’t reply to the CCP via ByteDance,” the platform’s guardian firm.

In his opening remarks, Chen stated he takes the US authorities’s issues about nationwide safety “very, very severely.” The TikTok CEO additionally defended the corporate’s effort to guard and retailer US consumer information on American soil via a partnership with Oracle.

Chew added that TikTok would prioritize defending its teenage customers from dangerous content material and wouldn’t permit its platform to be manipulated by China or different international governments.

“There are greater than 150 million Individuals who love our platform and we all know we’ve got a duty to guard them,” Chew stated.

Earlier within the day, China indicated it could “firmly oppose” any effort by the Biden administration to drive a sale of TikTok.

It is a breaking story. Examine again for updates.