The response was probably what TikTok had hoped for. Chew’s responses as wins against uninformed lawmakers, who sometimes posed basic questions about the internet.

They highlighted lawmakers asking the executive yes or no questions and then interrupting him. Many TikTok users also rallied behind Mr. The hashtag #TikTokBan had 1.7 billion views on Monday, up from 983 million on March 18. Doctors, self-defense experts, parenting influencers and others shared videos saying they were already researching ways to maintain access to the app even if it became banned and blamed Facebook and Google for the criticism. Many were solidly against a TikTok ban in the United States. “There needs to be an age limit on congressional positions bc this was so embarrassing,” one user wrote in the caption of a video posted on Friday. government over data security concerns.īut on TikTok itself, lawmakers’ concerns landed with a thud. The Biden administration has also pushed for TikTok to be separated from ByteDance through a sale, a move that China has opposed, or for it to try to strike an agreement with the U.S.

But his answers were largely met with derision by lawmakers, fueling calls for TikTok to be banned entirely from Apple’s and Google’s app stores in the United States. Chew said TikTok had a plan to protect American user data and denied that the Chinese government controlled ByteDance. Chew appeared before Congress and was grilled for roughly five hours, with lawmakers questioning whether TikTok was spying on Americans on behalf of the Chinese government, endangering young people with toxic content and invading people’s privacy. The outcry follows rising concerns from lawmakers and the Biden administration over whether TikTok provides sensitive data about American users to Chinese authorities.

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