The U.S. Congress held a hearing a few days ago, and invited Zhou Shouzi, the CEO of TikTok, the overseas version of the Chinese short video platform Douyin, to testify against data security and harmful content. Instead, it highlights the major threat of Douyin’s overseas penetration.
TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi was invited to testify at a hearing of the “Energy and Commerce Committee” of the U.S. House of Representatives on March 23. Topics included data security concerns, indulgence of harmful content, user privacy and protection, U.S. national security, etc. Zhou Shouzi was the only witness in this hearing.
Zhou Shouzi, a 40-year-old Singaporean, currently lives in Singapore. He once studied in the United Kingdom and the United States. He is a master of management at Harvard Business School. He joined Bytedance in April 2021 as the chief financial officer and concurrently as the CEO of TikTok. He stopped his post in November of that year and focused on Responsible for the operation of TikTok, it is said that the annual salary is as high as hundreds of millions of dollars.
The working emperor from Singapore
Before the hearing, Zhou Shouzi said on March 20 that TikTok’s monthly active users in the United States have grown from 100 million in 2020 to about 150 million. In addition, TikTok told Reuters on March 15 that the Biden administration had recently asked its Chinese owners to sell equity, otherwise it may be completely banned in the United States; on March 17, six U.S. senators also supported legislation Give the president the power to ban TikTok on national security grounds.
On March 7, a number of cross-party members of the U.S. Senate introduced a 55-page bill “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act”, referred to as “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act”. The RESTRICT Act, which aims to provide the Biden administration with greater powers to regulate communication technology products in competing countries such as China, is clearly aimed at Douyin.
The parent company of TikTok is ByteDance located in Beijing, China. Due to the CCP’s “National Intelligence Law” and other laws and regulations, as long as the Chinese government determines that it involves national security or has any needs, the company should cooperate with the authorities to provide user data and personal information. Recently, ByteDance has indeed been exposed to multiple incidents of stealing personal data, including the monitoring of American journalists, and the fact that the Chinese Communist Party uses Douyin TikTok as a political propaganda and cognitive warfare weapon frequently, so the hearing on the 23rd has attracted much attention.
“Voice of America”pointed outrecently The New York Times and Forbes (Forbes) and other media reports that the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI are investigating the case of ByteDance monitoring American journalists. In December last year, ByteDance admitted that it had fired four employees in the summer for stealing the personal data of two reporters and related persons. , trying to investigate the suspect who leaked the company report.
In this hearing, Zhou Shouzi seemed to want to show lawmakers that TikTok is an international company that is not influenced by Chinese politics and can positively influence American society. , On the contrary, it has deepened doubts among lawmakers of both parties who do not trust Douyin. Although Zhou Shouzi, who is neat and decent, knows how to try his best to show the image of rationality and innocent suffering, public opinion still calls this hearing a major disaster, and it may be a matter of time before TikTok accepts a thorough rectification in the US market.
According to Voice of America March 24reportCathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA, chairman of the Republican House Energy and Commerce Committee, pointed out in the opening speech of the hearing that Zhou was invited to testify because the American people need to know the truth that TikTok threatens the safety of the United States and individuals, and Accusing TikTok of collecting any imaginable data and being manipulated by the CCP, he emphasized to Zhou that “your platform should be banned.”
The editor-in-chief of ByteDance is the secretary of the party committee
Rogers then severely pointed out the triangular relationship between TikTok and ByteDance and the CCP, and said to Zhou Shouzi: “You stated in your testimony that ByteDance is not affiliated with the CCP. But everyone I just listed is related to the CCP, including Zhang Fuping (ByteDance Party Secretary, Vice President, Chief Editor), according to reports he is the ByteDance Party Secretary, and he called on the Party Committee to take the lead in ensuring that the application of software algorithms should follow the leadership of the “correct political direction.”
During the “suffering” of more than five hours of hearings, Zhou Shouzi repeatedly denied that TikTok was controlled by ByteDance, the parent company, emphasizing that TikTok is an international company headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, declaring, “Let me unequivocally Statement: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any country.” However, in fact, TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, which means that user data may fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party through the National Intelligence Law at any time.
Democratic Congressman Eshoo (Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-CA) pointed out at the hearing that China’s “National Intelligence Law” requires all companies to cooperate with the Chinese government to provide data information and intelligence. Zhou Shouzi said that he plans to transfer the data of Americans to the United States, and that it is in progress, and claimed that he has seen no evidence that the Chinese government can obtain the path of American data.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-TX, a Republican congressman from Texas, did not accept the statement that Zhou was funded, and pointed out to Voice of America that even if the data is stored in the United States, according to Chinese law, they still have to To hand over to ByteDance, “The company organization includes ByteDance, which is influenced by the CCP and has members of the CCP. This is obvious.”
Zhou’s funded career “poor credit” was also challenged. Republican Congressman Dunn (Rep. Neal Dunn, R-TX) turned over old scores at the hearing, pointing out that the Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi (Xiaomi) ) to steal a large amount of user data, and what is even worse is that Xiaomi mobile phones sold to Europeans have a keyword blocking list. For example, 449 words such as “Voice of America” and “democracy movement” will be automatically blocked from Xiaomi mobile phones.
Dunn criticized that Zhou was funded from 2015 to 2021 as the chief financial officer of Xiaomi’s international department. It is impossible for him to be unaware of this. He should be responsible for this. It is unreasonable to expect Congress to believe that Zhou will not conduct censorship on behalf of the CCP, “because you have already done so.”
The resolute attitude of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy (Kevin McCarthy) after the hearing, summed up the dissatisfaction of the US Congress with the story of Zhou’s false response, and also predicted that it will prompt the government to tighten control of TikTok. On March 26, McCarthy stated that he would advance legislation to address TikTok’s security issues. He tweeted that “it is very worrying that the CEO of TikTok cannot admit the facts we already know-China can obtain TikTok user data. The House of Representatives will advance legislation , to protect Americans from the technological tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party.”
