TikTok’s hearing from hell

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Mar 23, 2023 View in browser   By Calder McHugh Presented by Action Now Initiative With additional reporting from Ari Hawkins TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy & Commerce Committee. | Francis Chung/POLITICO HOT SEAT — TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s day on the Hill didn’t go well. A bipartisan cavalcade of lawmakers went after TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance and its relationship with China’s government, as well as TikTok’s alleged noxious effects on mental health, especially for teenagers. “TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you,” said the chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). “Your technology is literally leading us to death,” Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) told Chew while citing rising suicide statistics. Chew’s defense of the platform — that he has no working relationship with the CCP, that it’s working on content moderation, that user data from U.S. consumers is stored in America — was unconvincing to lawmakers. “That’s not enough for me,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.). “That’s not enough for the parents of America.” Now comes the hard part. Lawmakers can get their licks in on Chew all they want. But if they’re so convinced that TikTok brings with it a host of social ills, they haven’t yet shown it with legislation to protect Americans’ privacy or force a total ban or a sale of the app (the path the Biden administration now reportedly favors). Boasting 150 million monthly users in the United States — and a growing slice of the entertainment, news and social connection pie — shutting down TikTok wouldn’t be as simple as removing it from the App Store. And a sale would bring its own complications, as China would have to approve the sale of the company and its algorithm given that it was developed within their borders. To make sense of the hearing today and what’s next for government action on TikTok, Nightly spoke with Rebecca Kern, a tech policy reporter for POLITICO who covered the hearing in detail today. This interview has been edited. What was the reception that TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew got in Congress today? There’s bipartisan frustration with TikTok today. There was a lot of concern about the ties to China’s Communist Party, which stems from the fact that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is based in Beijing. China has a data security law that would require companies based in China to give data over to the Chinese government if they request. So, they are very concerned if U.S. data from TikTok would be subject to any CCP requests. Chew said that they have never given over data to the CCP and the CCP has never requested it. He says U.S. data is housed in cloud servers in the U.S., but was not able to directly answer whether ByteDance employees can access this data. Was there any support for Chew or TikTok? No. There was no real support. That’s why they brought him in, to yell at him and show they’re strong on China. Some Republicans in particular asked pretty accusatory questions about whether TikTok employed card-carrying members of the Communist Party and if Chew himself was a member of the Communist Party. Chew lives in Singapore, he’s from there, he got his education in London and then at Harvard Business School. So, he has no China ties currently, he made that point very clear. He also noted that TikTok is a U.S.-incorporated company that has headquarters in L.A. and Singapore. That’s a point that TikTok has repeatedly made, but it does not seem to be successful in convincing lawmakers that user data is secure. Another big talking point that came from Republicans and Democrats was that this clarified the need for a national privacy law in the United States. The committee passed the America Data Privacy and Protection Act last year with almost unanimous support, and they’re going to re-introduce that. You mentioned a possible national privacy law. What else might result from the hearing today? We know for sure that bill will be re-introduced. I think that’s the biggest thing we’ll see from that committee, because it’s 100 percent in their jurisdiction. In that bill are strong childrens’ privacy and safety protections, which they brought up a lot today. TikTok is used mostly by kids and teenagers, and our current Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act from 1998 only prohibits data collection from kids 13 and under. So, everyone from 13 to 18 on the app doesn’t have privacy protection. This bill would extend banning certain data collection up to age 17. Every social media platform, including TikTok, can now currently collect that data, which is how you get targeted ads, for example. Was there any momentum towards a full ban of TikTok?  Committee Chair McMorris Rodgers said in her opening statements that TikTok should be banned. But I didn’t see many Democrats supporting that position; I think they’re still analyzing. Almost half of our country — 150 million people — use TikTok. And a lot of young voters in particular are on the app. I’d also like to note that Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who’s not on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, held a rally on Wednesday outside the Capitol with about 20 TikTok creators opposing a TikTok ban. So, a ban is not a unified message on the Hill. There is one bill in the Senate that wouldn’t directly get at a ban — the RESTRICT Act from Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) that has almost 20 sponsors — that would basically give the executive branch more authority to research and then potentially restrict technology from “foreign adversaries,” one of which is China. If there’s bipartisan opposition to TikTok at least in its current form — and a lack of privacy protections in general — why hasn’t anything been done yet? Was this hearing a potential turning point?  I do think this is a big moment, and it’s clarifying that we are seeing that it’s bipartisan. Because if we look back at 2020 when Trump attempted a ban, it was really only Republicans in support. China hawks have advanced the conversation, and they’ve drawn in support from Warner and some other Democrats. And I think that Democrats on the House Energy & Commerce Committee were just as forceful today on the condemnation of the data practices of TikTok and their ties to China. Starting under Trump, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. conducted a national security review of TikTok, which led to Trump calling for a ban. Biden repealed that executive order calling for a ban. But now, as of last week there’s been reporting that he’s directing TikTok to either sell or be banned. So, we’re back to where we started. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh.   A message from Action Now Initiative: Protecting our seniors means protecting Medicare. Each year, big insurance companies abuse Medicare Advantage by overcharging seniors and taxpayers by billions. Now, there is a proposal to crack down on fraud and waste by insurance companies in Medicare Advantage. It’s a start – but it’s not enough. We can’t afford to wait. We already know the price of a delay – $23 billion in 2023 alone. Congress: Stop fraud and abuse. 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Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     Nightly Road to 2024 THREE QUESTIONS WITH…  Nightly spoke with Cornell Belcher, a veteran of both of former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, and founder and president of the polling firm Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies. What are some of the key dynamics that will shape President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign?  The broad dynamics of this race have not unfolded; hell, we don’t even have a Republican nominee as of yet. The dynamics of a race between Trump and Biden, or DeSantis and Biden, will be very different from the dynamics of a race with, say, Nikki Haley, or Tim Scott against Biden. We’re a long ways away from knowing that and how these dynamics will unfold. At the same time, there are larger contextual [areas] that will come into play in this race. The economy is an easy one to say, but it’s also a lazy one to say. Look no further than the midterms, where Republicans and Republican pundits and much of the media were talking about a red wave. Well, it wasn’t just the economy, stupid. And if you look at the percentage of voters who came out of that the past midterm, who said reproductive rights was their top voting issue, it was almost equal to that of voters who said the economy was a voting issue, and what’s important is that Democrats actually got a larger percentage of voters who said their top issue was reproductive rights. Do you expect issues of crime and police funding will play a central role in the 2024 presidential campaign? What other issues will be critical? Republicans ran crime ads against my clients [Democrats] in 2018. They ran crime ads against our candidates in 2020, and they were running crime ads in this past midterm election, in 2022. That’s how they mobilize. Crime is just a variable, or a tactic, in the overall driving of fear strategy. So yes, Republicans are going to run more ads on crime and drive fear about an “invasion” at our southern border, because that’s sort of a central tenet of their overall strategy. Crime will be pushed by Republicans, but there’s the economic turnaround, which will absolutely be pushed by Biden and Harris, as well as the attacks on women’s reproductive freedoms, which will again be a central issue in this coming election. There’s education, which is not a secondary for many women, especially moms. Another central issue will once again be the elements of the cultural wars, racism and division. 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He has been in detention since then.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     Nightly Number 1.05 million The total number of people added to the population of Canada between January 2022 and 2023, according to Statistics Canada. The rise is pinned almost entirely on a surge in immigrants and temporary residents who have entered the country in the past year, as the government responds to labor shortages. This is the first 12-month period in Canada where the population grew by more than 1 million people, and the highest annual population growth since 1957. 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MedPAC estimates that insurers’ abusive billing practices will cost taxpayers $23 billion in 2023 alone. Now, there’s a proposal to start cracking down on insurance company overcharges in Medicare Advantage. It is an important first step, but it does not go far enough. We can’t afford to wait. We already know the price of a delay – $23 billion in taxpayer dollars projected this year. Congress: Stop the fraud and abuse in Medicare Advantage. Protect our seniors and their benefits.     Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong Ari Hawkins @_AriHawkins   Follow us

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