TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday about safety and national security concerns surrounding his social media behemoth. He was not well received.
Members of both parties grilled Chew relentlessly over TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government and its data practices because its parent company, ByteDance, is based in China. The hearing came as President Joe Biden and lawmakers in both parties are considering laws that could regulate or ban TikTok from the U.S. — a hot-button issue since nearly half of the country is on the viral video-sharing platform. While lawmakers did touch on other issues, such as whether the video’s algorithm promotes dangerous content to children, the main focus was how TikTok could be weaponized against Americans through data surveillance or algorithm manipulation.
It’s not sinophobic to ask questions about how to guard against TikTok’s misuse. It’s common sense.
Some critics responded to the harshness of the hearing as proof of bigotry. TikTok’s Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas said the committee’s interrogation was “rooted in xenophobia.” Some progressive commentators have said the same. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., told NBC News this week ahead of the hearing that fearmongering about TikTok was related to “xenophobia around China” and has warned against what he calls the “racist” reasoning behind talks of a ban.
There’s no doubt that the posture of some lawmakers on TikTok is racialized and grounded in a hawkish attitude toward China. But that’s not the whole story. Given what we know about how Big Tech abuses data, about how China’s authoritarian government systematically embraces surveillance as a tool of social control, and about the increasingly adversarial geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and China, it’s not sinophobic to ask questions about how to guard against TikTok’s misuse. It’s common sense.
While a ban is probably too…
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