TikTok is used by 150 million monthly active users in the United States, nearly half of the country's population. (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
On March 23, 2023, local time in the United States, the CEO of short video giant TikTok Zhou Shouzi attended a hearing of the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, accepting questions from 52 committee members to respond to the concerns of members of Congress on issues such as data privacy security, the protection of minors, and the influence of foreign forces. It was his first appearance before the U.S. Congress to testify for TikTok.
The day before the hearing, dozens of TikTok creators opposed the U.S. ban on TikTok at a press conference hosted by U.S. Representative Mar Bowman, Democrat of New York, and supporters stood in front of the Capitol with signs in their hands that read: "Keep TikTok" and "TikTok helped grow my business."
Before formally testifying, Zhou submitted a piece of documentary evidence. In this documentary evidence, he earnestly describes his native Singapore and his Chinese-American wife, and describes TikTok's efforts and four-point commitment to topics of parliamentary concern. He mentioned that out of the importance it attaches to Congress, TikTok has provided a volume of information that goes far beyond its legal obligations.
Still, the Americans aren't buying it. The Washington Post reported that committee chairman Rogers supports the U.S. ban on TikTok, and her aides recently said that anything Zhou said in her testimony would not change her mind. During the five-hour hearing, Zhou was questioned more than forty rounds.
Several lawmakers asked Mr. Zhou to comment on his and TikTok's ties to the Chinese government, but they did not hear the answers they imagined. One lawmaker said during the hearing that he heard more questions than answers.
"We have also noted TikTok's statement." Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning responded to the incident on March 24 by saying that the Chinese government attaches great importance to and protects data privacy and security in accordance with the law, and has never and will not require companies or individuals to collect or provide data information and intelligence located in foreign countries for the Chinese government in a manner that violates local laws.
The scene of the hearing. (CCTV News/Photos)
“Mr.Chew，yesorno？”
Zhou is a Singaporean native and usually works for TikTok in the Singapore office. Just as Singapore plays the role of a cultural bridge between East and West in the world, Zhou Shouzi was pinned on by TikTok founder Zhang Yiming to balance the cultural conflict between China and the West. He has a young Eastern face, and his resume shows that he is the quintessential Western elite.
But these backgrounds did not make Zhou Shouzi "better" at the hearing.
During the nearly five-hour hearing, the focus was more on the relationship between TikTok's parent company ByteDance and the Chinese government, whether it would be influenced by the Chinese government to engage in "espionage" activities, and most of the questions were hypothetical.
When asking questions, MPs will state background information at length, but Chow Shouzi is mostly asked to only answer right and wrong. As soon as he wanted to elaborate more, he was immediately used by the lawmakers as "Mr. Chew, yes or no?" "Come and interrupt.
On the national security issues that Americans are concerned about, Zhou Shouzi stressed that ByteDance is a global private company, 60% owned by global investors, and three of the five members of the board are Americans, and TikTok is headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles, TikTok is not available in Chinese mainland and will not be influenced by the Chinese government.
In response, Zhou tried to downplay TikTok's ties with China and called for "ownership is not the core of the solution." But his explanation did not win the approval of lawmakers, who remained skeptical of TikTok's independence.
Data security is another core concern for U.S. lawmakers. Several lawmakers suspect that TikTok user data will be provided to the Chinese government for surveillance purposes. They are based on previous reports in the US media that ByteDance employees have improperly accessed the personal information of several US citizens, and the US government has launched a criminal investigation into ByteDance.
In response to data security concerns, Zhou said TikTok is spending $1.5 billion to build a "firewall" called the Texas Project, which can protect U.S. users' data from unauthorized access and is subject to U.S. surveillance. A Texas Republican rep. said publicly, "Texas is not the right name." We support freedom and transparency, and we don't want your project. ”
According to The Washington Post, they worked with privacy researchers in 2020 to delve into TikTok and found that the app collects roughly the same user data as other mainstream social media. In 2021, Pellaeon Lin, a Taiwanese researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, conducted another technical analysis of TikTok's user data collection and came to a similar conclusion.
According to Zhou, the new TikTok data created by U.S. users is already stored on cloud-based servers operated by U.S. tech giant Oracle.
Several lawmakers also mentioned TikTok's bad guidance and harm to American minors, accusing TikTok of not doing the same strict content censorship as Douyin. In this regard, Zhou Shouzi also said that these problems are not unique to TikTok, but are challenges faced by the entire industry. This claim was also not accepted by members of Congress.
"The hearing itself was not meant to be heard." Li Zheng, an associate researcher at the Institute of American Studies at the International Institute of Contemporary Relations in China, told Southern Weekend that the goal of the US congressional hearing is to educate the American people and play up TikTok's threat to the American people in order to promote relevant congressional legislation. One of the most aggressive pieces of legislation in Congress is to ban federal government employees from installing TikTok on communications equipment, and there is no ban on the use of TikTok by Americans for the time being.
TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter issued a statement to CNN after the hearing that Zhou was ready to answer questions from Congress, but unfortunately the day was dominated by political grandstanding and could not tell the real solution in progress.
The US side has a high probability of prohibiting rules
Since the Trump administration, TikTok has faced two choices: sell or be banned. During the Biden administration, the issue was once again brought to TikTok.
Trump issued a blanket ban on the app in August 2020, and in June 2021 Biden withdrew Trump's ban executive order and conducted a comprehensive review of foreign-controlled apps.
Before Zhou attended the hearing, the Biden administration warned ByteDance that it must sell TikTok or TikTok could be banned.
In response, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce responded that the sale or divestment of TikTok involves technology export issues, and administrative licensing procedures must be carried out in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations, and the Chinese government will make a decision in accordance with the law.
The news was cited during the hearing, with members of Congress citing it as evidence that TikTok cannot escape interference from foreign governments.
Neither the divestiture nor the ban was the outcome Zhou Shouzi hoped to see. He made this position clear in his written evidence to Congress: "I don't believe that harming American businesses, silencing the voices of 150 million Americans, and imposing market competition bans are the solutions, and just as divestment will not solve the problems I have heard." ”
Judging from the hearing, Zhou's testimony failed to dispel the concerns of members of Congress about TikTok, but instead allowed the two parties to achieve a unity rarely seen in nearly three or four years, and no lawmaker supported TikTok throughout the hearing.
"Judging from the way the US side interrogated, they did not give TikTok enough opportunities to clarify and show, and they have a strong orientation and tendency." Wu Shenkuo, doctoral supervisor at the Law School of Beijing Normal University and deputy director of the Research Center of the Internet Society of China, told Southern Weekend that from the current perception, the United States has an obvious tendency to introduce prohibitive rules, and the probability is relatively large.
At the same time as the hearing, Warner, chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, discussed his bipartisan bill, the Restrictions Act, on CNBC. The bill would allow the federal government to regulate and even ban foreign-made technologies that fall under the national security domain, including TikTok. He introduced that his bill only discusses communication technology, but also talks about areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, synthetic biology, etc., which are now also defined by technology.
In addition to American politics, there is no shortage of voices in American society banning TikTok.
According to a recent CBS poll, more than 90 percent of the U.S. public has heard or read TikTok content, and 61 percent of Americans who have heard of TikTok approve of the U.S. government's ban on the app, compared with 39 percent opposed.
The latest Washington Post poll also showed that 41 percent supported banning TikTok, 25 percent opposed it, and the remaining 34 percent were unsure. 71% of Americans said they were concerned about TikTok's parent company being located in China.
"It cannot be considered (this hearing) as TikTok's last chance." Wu Shenguo said that this hearing will become one of the bases for subsequent US decision-making, but the final signing power of Congress to pass relevant bills is still with the US president; Second, the passage of relevant bills by Congress is only enabling legislation, and whether to implement them is still decided by the President of the United States.
Regarding whether this hearing will affect TikTok's business in the United States, Li Zheng said that it is difficult to judge that TikTok's development has been relatively smooth in the past two years. Although there have been many bans on TikTok in the United States, it has not actually terminated TikTok's business in the United States, and the impact on its business will not necessarily be so great.
Two days before the hearing, Zhou Shouzi, wearing a black sweatshirt jacket and light blue jeans, posted a short TikTok video in which he excitedly greeted TikTok users, announcing to everyone that 150 million active users in the United States share, create, and learn on TikTok every month, and nearly 5 million American enterprise users use TikTok to do business.
Southern Weekend Reporter Zhou Xiaoling Southern Weekend Intern Ke Xinyu Li Anqi