POLICY
POLICY
POLICY
TikTok CEO addresses American users in video as pressure mounts on the company
As the TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew prepares for his grilling in front of Congress this Thursday and bad news comes from Europe, he made a video today reminding Americans how great TikTok is.
Speaking from Washington, he talked about the 150 million users of the app in the U.S., including “5 million businesses.” Chew added, “The majority of these are small and medium businesses.” He said he’s “so thankful” to the 7,000 TikTok staff in the U.S., who, he says, helped to build the experience.
Notably, Chew called this a “pivotal moment” as Congress mulls taking the app away from Americans. In pure Zuckerberg-speak, he then reminded people about the “joy” and “creativity” TikTok brings to them. “Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok,” he said, in a way that evokes a picture of someone telling school kids that a bad man wants to take away their milk. His short speech certainly wasn’t a defense of the national security concerns politicians have aired.
“Let me know in the comments what you want your elected representatives to know about what you love about TikTok,” he added. Still, the way Shew delivered the message, you’d think most of the viewers wouldn’t know what an elected representative was.
This might be a last-ditch effort to get the public on his side because it seems like politicians have made up their minds. That said, former President Donald Trump failed to ban TikTok. Taking people’s favorite app away won’t be easy when there is still no proof that TikTok is a secret spying machine for the Chinese Communist Party.
It would look rather unfair to take the milk away from the kids, and what politician would want to annoy possibly every voter under the age of 35? Right now, to most folks in the U.S., the animus against TikTok looks more like bad blood in a trade war. Chew made the right move, circuitously painting Congress as Ebenezer Scrooge in an everlasting Christmas.
The app played another ace card today when it updated its community guidelines, not a move aimed at its young audience but a defense it can use in front of politicians. One of the updates includes banning one of everyone’s worst fears, AI deepfakes.
This comes as both Norway and the Netherlands ban the app for government employees, following in the footsteps of the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and the European Parliament. Today, Italy also posed another setback for TikTok when it began a probe into potential “dangerous content” on the app that might harm children.
Photo: Nordskov Media/Flickr
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