TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew

Both Republicans and Democrats expressed deep skepticism that the company won't share U.S. user data with the Chinese government while questioning Chew.

Lawmakers went on to reprimand the CEO over the safety of children, misinformation and targeted advertising. "You have repeatedly used the word transparency throughout this hearing," Palmer said. Chew admitted on Thursday that until Project Texas is complete, Beijing-based employees of TikTok would still be able to access U.S. They also said the app promotes misinformation like antivaccine advice and voter suppression campaigns. But, under the restructuring, the digital firewall would prevent Chinese employees from having access to Americans' personal information. The Biden administration told TikTok earlier this month that if its Chinese owners didn't sell their stakes in the app to a U.S. During the hearing, Chew was grilled about whether the app shares data with the Chinese government. Chew said TikTok does not promote or remove content at the request of Chinese authorities. They fear China's authoritarian regime could use the app to spy on, or blackmail, the millions of Americans who use it every day. TikTok offered an alternative it's currently working on, called "Project Texas." In this scenario, the Chinese government couldn't access the data and it would be overseen by Oracle. journalists who were reporting on company leaks — an incident now being investigated by Justice Department, [according to Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/03/16/fbi-doj-investigating-bytedance-tiktok-surveillance-journalists/).

Bipartisan support to ban the app has grown over concerns of Chinese government influence, spread of 'harmful content'.

Many legislators also seized on a Wall Street Journal report published on Thursday in which a spokesperson for the Commerce Ministry said any sale of TikTok would need to be approved by the Chinese government. “Your own community guidelines state that you have a firm stance against enabling violence on or off TikTok,” she said. She said it had been on the app since February 10. The administration of President Joe Biden reportedly has called on TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the app or lose the ability to operate in the US. In fact, the entire China has countered that the US is spreading disinformation and suppressing users. He also said TikTok had not shared data with Beijing. “You expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data privacy and security of 150 million Americans when you can’t even protect the people in this room?” “Your platform should be banned”. Chew said the initiative is building “what amounts to a firewall that seals off protected user data from unauthorised foreign access”, adding that pre-existing user data was in the process of being deleted from servers in the US and Singapore. “While TikTok videos provide a new fun way for people to express their creativity and enjoy the videos of others, the platform also threatens the health, privacy and security of the American people,” he said. “TikTok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation,” she said at the opening of the hearing.

CEO Shou Zi Chew struggled to convince skeptical lawmakers that the app protects user data as momentum builds for banning the app over national security ...

[new CBS News poll](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-opinion-poll-2023-03-22/) found that most Americans say that TikTok's ties to China pose a security risk, and those who do would like to see the video-sharing app banned in the U.S. [several bills](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-ban-democrats-china-challenge/) that would empower the administration to ban TikTok nationwide. The chief executive told the panel that TikTok is building "what amounts to a firewall that seals off protected U.S. user data from unauthorized foreign access," including the establishment of a new corporate entity to oversee U.S. Neal Dunn of Florida about a report by Forbes in 2022 that revealed a group of ByteDance employees in Beijing had planned to "monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens." Data Security is incorporated in the U.S. The Justice Department is said to be [investigating](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-bytedance-justice-department-investigation-spying/) ByteDance for possible spying on U.S. Some of that old data is still held in servers in Virginia and Singapore that could be accessed by engineers in China, according to Chew. "You damn well know that you cannot protect the data and security of this committee or the 150 million users of your app because it is an extension of the CCP," Cammack told Chew. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the committee's chair, said they "do not trust that TikTok will ever embrace American values." [Shou Zi Chew](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-ceo-shou-zi-chew/) struggled to reassure lawmakers that the massively popular social video app doesn't pose a risk to its 150 million users nor share user data with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Members of both parties spent hours denouncing TikTok's data collection practices and painting it as a tool used by the Chinese government to track and spy on Americans.