Shou Zi Chew, main executive officer of TikTok Inc., speaks throughout the Bloomberg New Financial system Forum in Singapore, on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022.
Bryan van der Beek | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appealed directly to the app’s end users, ahead of what’s expected to be a heated grilling in the U.S. Residence Strength and Commerce Committee this week, in a movie posted to the system on Tuesday.
Filming from Washington D.C., Chew emphasised the huge scale of TikTok users, smaller and medium-sized businesses and its possess workforce centered in the U.S. that depend on the enterprise. The information may perhaps preview his attractiveness to lawmakers on Thursday, the place he will be confronted with queries about the capacity of its Chinese father or mother organization ByteDance, and the Chinese govt, to access U.S. user info gathered by the application.
TikTok has labored to develop a hazard mitigation plan to make sure that U.S. facts doesn’t get into the arms of a international adversary by way of its app. The corporation has stated U.S. user knowledge is presently stored outdoors of China.
But lots of lawmakers and intelligence officers feel to keep on being unconvinced that the information can be safe and sound when TikTok is owned by a Chinese corporation. TikTok explained past 7 days that the Committee on Foreign Financial commitment in the U.S., which is reviewing dangers similar to the application, is pushing for ByteDance to provide its stake or confront a ban.
Chew disclosed in the online video that TikTok has additional than 150 million regular monthly energetic customers (MAUs) in the U.S., symbolizing enormous progress from August 2020, when it explained for the initially time that it has about 100 million MAUs in the place. That number includes 5 million enterprises that use the application to access their buyers, with most of those remaining modest or medium-sized businesses. He also stated TikTok has 7,000 U.S.-centered workers.
“This arrives at a pivotal minute for us,” Chew stated, referencing lawmakers’ threats of a TikTok ban. “This could choose TikTok absent from all 150 million of you.”
Chew then appealed to end users instantly to share in the opinions what they want their reps to know about why they enjoy TikTok.
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