TikTok CEO Holds His Own in Anti-China Hearing

Is Congress suddenly concerned with American’s online privacy? No, of course not. This week, in Washington, TikTok took center stage. The CEO of the platform, Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean businessman and entrepreneur, testified for five hours about his company’s data practices. Ostensibly that is what the hearing was about, but things quickly turned in a very anti-China, anti-Tik Tok direction.

Attacking TikTok probably seems like great politics for people who take for granted that there should and will be great power competition between China and the United States, as well as for those who are totally in the pocket of wealthy American tech interests, like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. In reality, it’s terrible politics for Democrats like the ban’s lead sponsor, Senator Mark Warner (D-Va). 150 million Americans use TikTok, and most of those folks have seen plenty of videos on their for you page exposing just how blatantly racist and “sphere of influence-y” these hearings were. It’s not about protecting American’s privacy; if it were then American legislators would care just as much about banning Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and literally everything other platform that treats its users like data lab rats. The reason TikTok is different is that it’s making businesses in China money.

Photo Credit: Recorded February 2023.

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