CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS (R-Wash.) the House Energy and Commerce committee chair of the US Congress has called for a nationwide ban on trending video application, TikTok.
Republican aides for the committee told reporters earlier this week when asked if Chew, TikTok CEO could do anything to persuade the committee that TikTok which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance can protect Americans’ data from the Chinese Communist Party without a ban or a forced sale, the aides gave a blunt no, as a response.
TikTok CEO SHOU ZI CHEW, who has been working tirelessly in recent months to convince lawmakers that the video-sharing Application is just for fun, testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday morning.
Chew aims to persuade lawmakers that the app which has about 150 million users in the U.S. doesn’t pose a risk to Americans or share data with the Chinese government.
With this testimony in particular, it’s clear that Chew is fighting a lost battle as Key lawmakers on the committee have already made up their mind.
The CEO has said he wants to win the lawmakers trust. But leading backers of legislation curbing TikTok’s influence in the United States say it’s all or nothing.
Sen. MARK WARNER (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NatSec Daily in a statement. that “While I appreciate Mr. Chew’s willingness to answer questions before Congress, TikTok’s lack of transparency, repeated obfuscations and misstatements of fact have severely undermined the credibility of any statements by TikTok employees, including Mr. Chew,”
Earlier this month, Warner had introduced the Bipartisan Restrict Act, which would give the federal government power to restrict and potentially ban the app.
House Foreign Affairs Chair MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas), who pushed the notion that could ban TikTok from mobile devices in America, stressed to NatSec Daily that the only solution he sees is “ByteDance’s full divestment from all assets and control of TikTok.”
Chew could use all the support he can get. His best move, which he plans on making is to hammer home the app’s popularity among nearly half the U.S. population, who are mostly young.
If a ban on TikTok went through, “the politician in me thinks you’re going to literally lose every voter under 35, forever,” Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO told Bloomberg News earlier this month.
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