Push to block platform reflects rising distrust of China and limited understanding of tech world
The spectacle of the US Congress grilling TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on 23 March could one day be remembered as a turning point in the history of globalisation. Over five hours of aggressive questioning, Chew – who is not Chinese, but Singaporean – did a magnificent job of defending his company’s Chinese ownership in the face of Congress’s limited understanding of the tech world.
The Biden administration views TikTok as a potential national-security threat and wants its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform to a US-owned company or face a possible ban. Chew, however, proposes that ByteDance retain its majority ownership of TikTok but have its US operations run entirely by the Texas-based tech giant Oracle, which would store all US user data on its servers and monitor how TikTok’s algorithms recommend content. Meanwhile, the Chinese government has said that it would oppose a forced sale.
