TikTok CEO Shou Chew will testify in a listening to earlier than the U.S. Home Committee on Power and Commerce this Thursday, March 23, at 10:00 a.m. ET.
As CEO, Chew is answerable for TikTok’s enterprise operations and strategic choices.
The “TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Information Privateness and Shield Youngsters from On-line Harms” listening to will likely be streamed dwell on the Power and Commerce Committee’s web site.
In accordance with written testimony submitted by Chew, the listening to will concentrate on TikTok’s alleged dedication to transparency, teen security, shopper privateness, and knowledge safety.
It additionally seems to broach the subject of misconceptions concerning the platform, reminiscent of its connection to the Chinese language authorities by its guardian firm, ByteDance.
Chew shared a particular message with TikTok yesterday from Washington, D.C., to thank 150 million customers, 5 million companies, and seven,000 workers within the U.S. for serving to construct the TikTok neighborhood.
@tiktokOur CEO, Shou Chew, shares a particular message on behalf of the whole TikTok staff to thank our neighborhood of 150 million Individuals forward of his congressional listening to later this week.♬ unique sound – TikTok
The video has acquired over 85k feedback from customers, many describing how TikTok has allowed them to work together with individuals worldwide and discover unbiased information, new views, academic content material, inspiration, and pleasure.
TikTok Updates Pointers And Presents Extra Instructional Content material
TikTok has been making important adjustments to its platform to handle many of those considerations earlier than this listening to to evade a complete U.S. ban on the platform.
Beneath is an outline of some efforts by TikTok to rehab its notion earlier than the listening to.
Up to date Neighborhood Pointers – TikTok up to date neighborhood tips and shared its Neighborhood Ideas to exhibit dedication to conserving the platform secure and inclusive for all customers.
For You Feed Refresh – TikTok recommends content material to customers based mostly on their engagement with content material and creators. For customers who really feel that suggestions now not align with their pursuits, TikTok launched the power to refresh the For You Web page, permitting them to obtain contemporary suggestions as in the event that they began a brand new account.
STEM Feed – To enhance the standard of academic content material on TikTok, it should introduce a STEM feed for content material targeted on Science, Expertise, Engineering, and Arithmetic. Not like the content material that seems when customers search the #STEM hashtag, TikTok says that Frequent Sense Networks and Poynter will evaluation STEM feed content material to make sure it’s secure for youthful audiences and factually correct.
This might make it extra just like the model of TikTok in China – Douyin – that promotes academic content material to youthful audiences over entertaining content material.
Sequence Monetization – To encourage creators to create in-depth, informative content material, TikTok launched a brand new monetization program for Sequence content material. Sequence permits creators to earn revenue by placing as much as 80 movies with as much as 20 minutes in size, every behind a paywall.
Extra Congressional Efforts To Limit TikTok
The TikTok listening to tomorrow isn’t the one Congressional effort to restrict or ban applied sciences like TikTok.
Earlier this month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) launched the RESTRICT Act (Limiting the Emergence of Safety Threats that Threat Data and Communications Expertise), which might create a proper course of for the federal government to evaluation and mitigate dangers of know-how originating in international locations like China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.
Warner launched the next assertion about tomorrow’s listening to.
“Whereas I admire Mr. Chew’s willingness to reply questions earlier than Congress, TikTok’s lack of transparency, repeated obfuscations, and misstatements of truth have severely undermined the credibility of any statements by TikTok workers, together with Mr. Chew. Congress wants to present the administration the instruments to evaluation and mitigate the harms posed by international know-how merchandise that come from adversarial nations. I’m proud to say that 20 senators have already signed on to the RESTRICT Act, our bipartisan laws that will do exactly that.”
Organizations just like the Tech Oversight Venture have identified that Congress ought to look past TikTok and examine comparable dangers to nationwide safety and youthful audiences posed by different Massive Tech platforms like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta.
We are going to observe tomorrow’s listening to intently – be sure you come again for our protection to find out how this may have an effect on customers and predict what is going to occur subsequent.
Featured Picture: Alex Verrone/Shutterstock
