The head of TikTok is scheduled to appear before Congress as lawmakers try to restrict and ban the app within the United States due to its connections to China.
On March 23, TikTok's Shou Zi Chew is set to speak before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The House is considering multiple pieces of legislation to ban TikTok. Congress recently banned the installation of TikTok on government devices. Meanwhile, the company is in negotiations with the Biden administration to overhaul its practices to ensure data safety while operating in the United States and avoid regulatory restrictions.
"ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the committee's chairwoman, said in a statement on Monday. "Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms."
TIKTOK BANNED BY UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SYSTEM
Chew was raised in Singapore and started working at Facebook as an intern in 2010 before founding a Chinese news aggregator that would become the basis of ByteDance. He left the company to serve as the chief financial officer for the Chinese electronics company Xiaomi in 2015 and led its first public offering. He was later invited back to act as the CFO of TikTok in March 2021, only to be promoted to CEO in May 2021 after the company lacked a CEO for several months due to Kevin Mayer stepping down amid the Trump administration's efforts to limit TikTok in the United States.
While Chew was appointed to help assuage concerns about Chinese parent company ByteDance, recent reports imply that the CEO does not have the decision-making power that most CEOs do. Decisions about the company's strategy were regularly made by ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, according to former employees.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said on Friday that he would host a panel vote on legislation to ban TikTok from the U.S. in the next month. McCaul stated that he was uncertain about efforts by the White House to allow TikTok to continue operating through a $1.5 billion plan to ensure that U.S. user information is safe.