As a rising variety of lawmakers elevate nationwide safety considerations about TikTok’s ties to China, and some consultants fear about the app’s influence on younger folks’s psychological well being, CNN is internet hosting a particular to dig into these points. Watch “CNN Primetime: Is time up for TikTok?” Thursday, March 23 at 9 p.m. ET.
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At a Harvard Business Review convention earlier this month, the place executives, professors and artists appeared for talks on company management and emotional intelligence, Shou Chew tried to save his firm.
In his discuss, Chew, the CEO of TikTok, stated the social community wouldn’t present US consumer information to the Chinese authorities and has by no means been requested to accomplish that. Chew confused the steps TikTok has taken to shield US consumer information. And 4 separate instances, Chew advised the viewers that the platform’s mission was to “inspire creativity and bring joy” to customers.
The Harvard occasion is only one of a number of media appearances Chew has made in latest weeks amid mounting scrutiny of TikTok and of himself. Chew is about to testify on Thursday for the first time earlier than a Congressional committee about “TikTok’s consumer privacy and data security practices, the platforms’ impact on kids, and its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party,” in accordance to a press release final week from the committee. Meanwhile, federal officers are now demanding the app’s Chinese owners promote their stake in the social media platform, or threat dealing with a US ban of the app.
Chew, a Singaporean who has largely stayed out of the highlight since taking on TikTok in 2021, not too long ago sat for interviews with a number of US newspapers and this week confirmed up in a video on the company TikTok account to spotlight the huge attain of the app, which he revealed now has greater than 150 million customers in the United States.
“That’s almost half the US coming to TikTok to connect, to create, to share, to learn, or just to have some fun,” stated Chew, carrying in a hoodie and t-shirt like some other American tech govt in the clip. “This comes at a pivotal moment for us. Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok, now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.”
Chew’s heightened visibility seems to be half of a bigger messaging marketing campaign by TikTok to bolster its status in the US and remind voters – and their representatives – how important the social community is to American tradition.
A press convention is deliberate for Wednesday with dozens of social media creators on the steps of the Capitol, a few of whom have been flown on the market by TikTok. The firm is paying for a blitz of ads for a Beltway viewers. And final week it put out a docuseries highlighting American small enterprise house owners who depend on the platform for his or her livelihoods.
Behind the scenes, Chew has additionally met with members of Congress and TikTok not too long ago invited researchers and teachers to its Washington, D.C., places of work to be taught extra about how it’s working to deal with lawmakers considerations over its ties to China via its guardian firm, ByteDance. Its guardian firm has additionally ramped up federal lobbying, spending greater than $5 million final 12 months, in accordance to data tracked by OpenSecrets.
“It’s life or death for TikTok, from their perspective,” stated Justin Sherman, the CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, D.C.-based analysis and advisory agency, who was amongst the researchers TikTok invited to be briefed on “Project Texas,” the firm’s $1.5 billion initiative to deal with lawmakers’ safety considerations. “They are throwing everything they can at the problem.”
In a press release, TikTok spokesman Jamal Brown stated: “A U.S. ban on TikTok could have a direct impact on the livelihoods of millions of Americans. Lawmakers in Washington debating TikTok should hear firsthand from people whose lives would be directly affected by their decisions.”
For a lot of the previous 12 months, TikTok has been rolling out new options and insurance policies to deal with privateness and safety considerations that the Chinese authorities may acquire entry to US consumer information, in addition to broader fears that its app, like different social platforms, will be dangerous to some youthful customers.
TikTok not too long ago set a default one-hour daily screen time limit on each account for customers underneath 18 in one among the most aggressive strikes but by a social media firm to forestall teenagers from endlessly scrolling. It rolled out a function that aimed to provide extra data to customers about why its highly effective algorithm recommends certain videos. And the firm pledged extra transparency to researchers.
Facing considerations about its guardian firm’s ties to China, TikTok has additionally taken various steps to extra clearly separate its US operations and consumer information from different elements of the group. That contains moving all its US user data to Oracle’s cloud platform, the place it says it hosts “100% of US user traffic.”
The messaging marketing campaign has solely ramped up this week forward of the listening to. TikTok rolled out refreshed Community Guidelines for content material, which the firm framed as being “based on our commitment to uphold human rights and aligned with international legal frameworks.” And Chew as soon as once more confused TikTok’s independence from China.
“I understand that there are concerns stemming from the inaccurate belief that TikTok’s corporate structure makes it beholden to the Chinese government or that it shares information about U.S. users with the Chinese government,” Chew stated in ready remarks forward of his testimony earlier than Congress. “This is emphatically untrue.”
At the identical time, TikTok is now betting on a method from American tech firms who’ve confronted scrutiny for different causes, enjoying up the influence it has on small companies in the United States, together with with the CEO’s ready remarks and a mini docuseries it launched final week titled “TikTok Sparks Good.”
The collection spotlighted inspiring tales of American small enterprise house owners and creators. The first of the 60-second clips encompasses a Mississippi cleaning soap maker with a deep Southern accent who constructed her firm on the app, and the second options an educator who give up his job to concentrate on sharing informational movies on TikTok geared toward educating toddlers how to learn.
“Because of TikTok, I’m reaching millions of families who want to teach their toddlers how to read,” the educator says.
Dozens of TikTok creators who oppose a ban may even be holding a press convention on Capitol grounds on Wednesday night with Congressman Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat from New York. TikTok flew out a few of the creators, the firm confirmed to CNN. (The Information was first to report the transfer.)
The listing of anticipated attendees features a disabled Asian American creator utilizing her platform to fight ableism, a small business owner from South Carolina who launched a greeting card firm through TikTok, and an Ohio-based chef who constructed her bakery enterprise through the app. Some of the creators have tons of of thousand and even hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok.
Even with these efforts, Sherman expressed some skepticism about how persuasive the PR push will likely be, principally due to how divided Washington is correct now.
“Not everyone wants a ban,” he stated. “For some lawmakers, it will matter that TikTok is taking all these steps to address security concerns.”
But for others, it received’t transfer the needle. “Some lawmakers, frankly, do not care what ads TikTok is taking out, what pledges it’s making on its blog about independence, data privacy … They see an unmitigable risk of Chinese government access to data and/or influence over content, and so are going to push for a complete ban.”
Lindsay Gorman, a senior fellow for rising applied sciences at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy and a former Biden administration adviser, stated that “by and large, TikTok’s lobbying efforts so far have been pretty ineffective.”
The drawback, she stated, is two-fold. First, even when TikTok takes steps to bolster its safeguards at this time, because it has been doing with Project Texas, considerations stay that it’s at all times “one update away from becoming a vulnerability.” And second, TikTok’s PR efforts in Washington received’t undo earlier moments when the firm “shot itself in the foot” by making what she stated had been “inaccurate statements” to Congress, “and then having revelations come out showing that those were inaccurate.”
After the preliminary, Trump-era requires a TikTok ban appeared to fade in Washington, BuzzFeed reported in 2021 that US consumer information was repeatedly accessed from China and that “everything is seen in China.” The particulars in the report had been seemingly at odds with remarks a TikTok govt gave earlier than a Senate panel earlier that 12 months, claiming {that a} US-based safety crew decides who can entry US consumer information from China. Following the report, TikTok as soon as once more grew to become a scorching button concern in the nation’s capital.
But at the same time as suspicion amongst US lawmakers grew, so did the app’s reputation in the nation.
“I do think TikTok’s strongest argument to date is drawing on its creator user base,” Gorman stated. But for some lawmakers with safety considerations, the newest push “may be too little too late.”
In his TikTok video on Tuesday, Chew appealed immediately to customers of the app. The CEO requested them to write in the feedback part to share “what you want your elected representatives to know about what you love about TikTok.”
The prime touch upon the clip, which has acquired upwards of 50,000 likes, merely reads: “You know something went wrong when the boss has to show up 😂”