TikTok CEO Reveals Ban On Its Applications In The US Will Lose The State's Economy

JAKARTA - TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will soon inform United States (US) lawmakers they are not working for the Chinese government and even banning the app will harm the country's business and economy.

Chew is scheduled to appear before the US House of Representatives' Energy and Trade Committee on March 24, in its first public testimony to Congress as TikTok's chief executive.

"Let me state this firmly. ByteDance is not a Chinese agent or any other country. On the other hand, our approach is to work transparently and cooperatively with the US government and Oracle to design a strong solution to address concerns about TikTok's legacy," Chew said, in a copy of his statement released by the US House of Representatives' main panel.

"We also hope to partner with the Committee in developing clear and consistent rules for the entire industry," he added.

The statement includes promises to expand applications to protect US user data, keep teens safe and free from government influence.

He added that more than 150 million Americans use TikTok every month, this emphasizes that US TikTok content creators are a major part of 1.5 billion users worldwide.

"We do not believe that a ban that harms America's small business, undermines the country's economy, silences the voices of more than 150 million Americans and reduces competition in the market that is increasingly concentrated is a solution to a solvable problem."

"It's almost half of the US coming to TikTok to connect, be creative, share, learn, or just have fun. This includes 5 million businesses that use TikTok to reach their customers. And the majority of them are small and medium businesses," he added.

However, more than a dozen countries have imposed bans on the public sector, in part, or full of TikTok due to national security concerns. The US was the first on the list.

Launching CNN International and Axios, Wednesday, March 23, ByteDance was founded by Chinese nationals but their shares now represent only 20 percent of the company's total private holdings, with the remainder consisting of global employees and institutional investors such as Blackrock and Sequoia.

As part of a $1.5 billion security fix known as Project Texas, TikTok last month began deleting US user data from its Singapore and Virginia-based servers. The deletion process is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

New TikTok data created by US users has been stored on cloud-based servers operated by Oracle, a change that took effect last month.

Meanwhile, a newly formed TikTok subsidiary known as US Data Security (USDS) will take full responsibility for dealing with American personal information in the future.

USDS already has nearly 1,500 full-time employees and the company plans to hire even more.

"Our commitment under the Texas Project is for all Americans' data to be stored in America, hosted by an American headquartered company, with access to data controlled by USDS personnel. Under this structure, there is no way for the Chinese government to access it or force access to it," said Chew.

While there may be some employees outside USDS who can access data for legal reasons and compliance, these access must be specifically approved by USDS.

Lastly, Chew said TikTok also supports the government in enacting a national data privacy law affecting all US businesses, as well as potential updates to a child-only privacy law known as COPPA, or the Child Online Privacy Protection Act.

His written testimony also outlines TikTok's move to keep users safe with content moderation by spending $1 billion in 2021.