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It took escalating Communist Chinese aggression and a smart-phone app that gives groomers and foreign adversaries alike easy access to tens of millions of American children to unite Republicans and Democrats, but it happened Thursday as politicians from both parties confronted the CEO of TikTok.
TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew the House Energy and Commerce Committee that its owner, the Beijing-based internet company ByteDance, « is not an ‘agent’ of communist-led China — amid growing U.S. concerns the immensely popular social media site is a national security threat and omnipresent danger to teens’ mental health, » Just the News reported.
Congressmen from both sides of the aisle on the committee came at Chew like waves on a beach, hitting him with tough questions about: Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, access to Americans’ TikTok user data; the app’s algorithms that hook teens on harmful (even deadly) videos; and the app’s biased moderation, including the banning of NBC star Enes Kanter Freedom, a fierce critic of human rights abuses in Communist China.
« Much of Chew’s attempts to stress that his company is not an arm of the Chinese government appeared to fall on deaf ears. Numerous members of Congress interrupted the chief executive’s testimony to say they simply don’t believe him, » reported CNN.
Rep. August Pfluger, R-TX., told Chew, « I’ve got to hand it to you: you’ve actually done something that in the last three to four years has not happened, [with] the exception of Vladimir Putin. You have unified Republicans and Democrats. If only for a day, we are actually unified, because we have serious concerns. »
Pfluger questioned an evasive Chew about TikTok’s sudden action against Kanter Freedom, a bold critic of Communist China’s dictatorship. @enesfreedom
EXPOSED! Here is proof that the CEO of @tiktok Shou Chew lied in front of the whole world. They want to manipulate & brainwash our youth! #CCP doesn’t care about freedom of speech. #China doesn’t care about human rights. We have to take concrete action before it’s too late! #TikTok (Try to ban me again) ????????
♬ original sound – Enes Kanter FREEDOM
Freedom provided real-time evidence of TikTok’s compromised ethics on the app itself: showing how his account was restored just as Chew was being grilled about his banishment. Freedom commented: « The CEO of @tiktok Shou Chew is a liar and the #CCP’s puppet.
