TikTok CEO Says Company at ‘Pivotal’ Moment as Calls for Ban in US Grow

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said the Chinese-owned short video app company faces a pivotal moment as a growing number of US lawmakers seek to ban the popular app over national security concerns.

Chew said in a video posted on TikTok early Tuesday the app now has more than 150 million active monthly US users. “That’s almost half the US coming to TikTok,” Chew said. TikTok in 2020 said it had 100 million US users.

Chew, who will testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said: “Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok.”

“Now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you,” he said in the video that features the US Capitol in the background.

He asked TikTok users to leave comments about what they wanted US lawmakers to know about “what you love about TikTok.”

Chew also said 5 million US businesses use TikTok to reach customers.

TikTok’s critics fear its US user data could be passed on to China’s government by the app, which is owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance. TikTok rejects the spying allegations.

TikTok also said Tuesday it had updated its community use guidelines and offered more details of its plans to secure the data of US users. The company said it had started to delete this month US user protected data in data centers in Virginia and Singapore after it started routing new US data to the Oracle Cloud last year.

Last week, TikTok said the Biden administration demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their stake in the app or it could face a US ban.

TikTok, which has said it has spent more than $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 12,396 crore) on rigorous data security efforts, said “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 growing number of US lawmakers support a ban on TikTok. This includes Energy and Commerce Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, congressional aides told reporters on a call Monday. On Friday, six more US senators backed bipartisan legislation to give Biden new powers to ban TikTok.

On March 1, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee voted along party lines to give President Joe Biden new powers to ban TikTok.

© Thomson Reuters 2023