His testimony comes as governments across the world have banned the app.
Amid growing global concern over the social media platform, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday, where U.S. lawmakers are expected to question Chew over safety concerns for minors and preventing U.S. user data from foreign access....
TikTok has empowered millions of Americans to express their voices in their own authentic way and has provided a global stage for their creativity in a way that cannot be replicated on any other platform or in any other medium. More than 150 million people in the United States use TikTok on a monthly basis, with the average user today being an adult well past college age. Their videos provide a lens through which the rest of the world can experience American culture.
Having met with a number of members of the Committee in recent weeks, the concerns that I have heard fall primarily into four categories: minor safety, data privacy and security, real-world harms from online activities, and the risk of foreign content manipulation. I would like to address each of these in turn. After that, I will compare some myths about TikTok to reality, including with regard to perceived foreign influence.
TikTok’s engagement with Congress is emblematic of our broader approach to transparency. Every quarter, we release a Community Guidelines Enforcement Report. These reports contain detailed information about the type and volume of content we remove. Twice a year, we also disclose data about requests we receive from law enforcement or governments.
As an initial matter, TikTok offers a separate experience in the United States for people under 13. In the United States, people under 13 are directed to a separate, curated viewing experience, with stringent safeguards and privacy protections designed specifically for them. In this experience, younger users can view on their devices fun, creative, and educational videos that are vetted by a third-party expert, Common Sense Networks.
Earlier this month, we announced that every account belonging to a person under age 18 will be set by default to a 60-minute daily screen time limit. We consulted experts from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital in choosing this limit. If the 60-minute limit is reached, teens will be prompted to enter a passcode in order to continue watching, requiring them to make an active decision to extend that time.
TikTok also recognizes that parents and caregivers are critical partners in ensuring the safety of teens. Parents and guardians cannot do it alone, and neither can we. TikTok is continuously looking for ways to involve parents and guardians in their teens’ experience on the platform. To that end, in 2020, TikTok unveiled Family Pairing.
We collect a limited amount of information when people set up an account, such as date of birth and username. Depending on how the individual signs up, we may also collect a phone number or email address. Unlike some other platforms, we do not require people on TikTok to provide us with their real names during registration, nor do we ask them about their employment or relationship status. Current versions of the app do not collect precise or approximate GPS information from U.S. users.
People come to TikTok to feel inspired, be creative, and watch uplifting content. It is not the platform of choice for individuals seeking to engage in harmful conduct. However, we also realize that threats to online platform safety are far from static. Content moderation, which is a core element of platform safety, is an exceptionally complicated, dynamic, and constantly evolving process.
The centerpiece of our work is called Project Texas. Project Texas is an unprecedented initiative dedicated to safeguarding both U.S. user data and U.S. national security interests. This initiative addresses key issues of corporate governance, content recommendation and moderation, data security, and system access. It is a comprehensive package of measures with layers of independent oversight to protect against backdoors into TikTok that could be used to manipulate the platform or access U.S.
To ensure that the data of all Americans is stored in America and hosted by an American headquartered company, we have contracted with Oracle, an industry leader in cloud-based services, to store TikTok’s U.S. user data. Currently, 100 percent of U.S. user traffic is being routed to Oracle and USDS-controlled infrastructure in the United States. USDS is running our recommendation system for U.S. users, which determines what appears in the For You feed, in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
We are eager to hear feedback and to address any concerns. We continue to believe that imposing state-of-the-art access and security controls is the best path forward, not only for TikTok, but for the industry as a whole, and we remain committed to continued consultation and to finding innovative answers to what we firmly believe are solvable concerns.
TikTok is led by an executive team in the United States and Singapore and has global offices, including in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Nashville, New York, Washington, D.C., Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo. Our headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore. TikTok is not available in mainland China. As CEO, I am responsible for all business operations and strategic decisions for TikTok.
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