U.S. Users Defend TikTok, Mock Lawmakers’ Hysteria
United States lawmakers early this week enacted a heinous political stunt to portray TikTok, a video-sharing social networking company, as a national security threat.
The nearly six-hour congressional grilling of TikTok chief executive officer Shou Zi Chew left one wondering what the point of the hearing was other than to expose the incompetence of some congressional members.
Despite the congressional grilling, TikTok received unwavering support from its myriad U.S. users, who defended TikTok’s innocence, expressed their support and mocked the lawmakers’ hysteria and ignorance at the hearing. Lasting for nearly six hours, Thursday’s hearing by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce centred on data privacy and child protection, about which Mr Chew presented the committee’s bipartisan members with steps TikTok has been taking to address the associated risks that are of concern.
Lacking evidence, the only excuse by which the lawmakers singled out TikTok as the must-be-banned app is that its parent company, ByteDance, operates in China. Ignoring that ByteDance is a private business, the lawmakers remain fixed on the untenable logic that companies operating in China must heed directives from the Chinese government.
The congressmen couldn’t tolerate any further explanation from Mr Chew beyond “yes” or “no” to their fishy questions.
Perhaps they feared that giving Mr Chew one opportunity to get into details would undercut the message they tried to convey to the public, and expose their hypocrisy to those watching from every corner of the world.
One stark example was when the committee’s chair, Republican Congresswoman Cathy Rogers representing the state of Washington, goaded Mr Chew to admit that ByteDance and TikTok used certain tactics to “spy” on Americans. In his response, Mr Chew challenged Ms Rogers’ characterisation of spying, but he was immediately interrupted by Ms Rogers, who almost lost her temper when saying “I want to hear you say with 100 percent certainty” that TikTok will not engage in surveillance activities against Americans. Denying Mr Chew the chance to make further statements because otherwise she wouldn’t have enough time to make her own, which she was keen to spread, Ms Rogers rushed to conclude that
TikTok is a “weapon” against Americans.
Similar interruptions happened numerous times during the subsequent rounds of exchanges between Mr Chew and other committee members.
The committee asked questions to which they already had answers not because they are curious about how TikTok would handle the issues of concern.
They simply wanted Chew to concur with their judgments -- most of which, unfortunately, are subjective and fanciful.
The U.S. government has forced
TikTok to split off from ByteDance and be acquired by an American company, otherwise it would face a nationwide ban.