US government officials remain apprehensive of the Beijing-based app TikTok, and while that's justifiable based on several times that it has proven to be as sketchy as predicated, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew bears the brunt during the child safety hearing.
Congress Questions TikTok CEO's Loyalties
The hearing regarding child safety when it comes to social media sites is a step in the right direction. However, the way the Congress went about it when it came to TikTok might've been a tad too xenophobic as it kept grilling Shou Zi Chew about his potential ties to China.
The US government has been after TikTok for a while now, accusing it of providing US user data to the Chinese government or manipulating the content that appears on the platform. Unfortunately, that concern has been misdirected.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) repeatedly asked the TikTok CEO about his citizenship, even though they were well aware that he was Singaporean and not Chinese. It got to the point where Cotton even questioned where his passport was from.
Finally, Chew was directly questioned if he had ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party, likely trying to get the executive to slip up, to which he responded adamantly: "Senator! I'm Singaporean!" as reported by The Verge.
This line of questioning might be rooted in the fact that Shou Zi Chew was also from Asia, or that he simply was not from the US. What's more, is that Cotton did not exactly specify the relevance of the questions to child safety, which was the main concern during the hearing.
Working on Project Texas
TikTok is making an effort to finally put the US government's doubts to rest as it works on Project Texas. The initiative is meant to "address US national security concerns," which was brought on by the parent company's Chinese heritage.
Ultimately, the goal is to make every American user on TikTok feel safe, especially with their data. So far, the company has already spent around $1.5 billion to implement the initiative with already two years of development with the framework.
The five key pillars that make up Project Texas are independent governance, data protection and access control, software assurance, content assurance, and monitoring and compliance, according to TikTok's blog post.
With independent governance, the company created a special-purpose subsidiary called TikTok US Data Security (USDS), which will be managing the business functions that require access to US user data, making sure that it is free from any form of foreign manipulation.
TikTok is also creating a version of TikTok for the US that is isolated from the original servers and will be using the US-based Oracle cloud environment. Even if it does communicate with the global TikTok service, it will be closely monitored.
Content assurance addresses the accusations of government officials stating that TikTok manipulates the content that shows up on users' feeds, while monitoring and compliance means that officials will no longer have to question TikTok executives about the influences of the Chinese government.
