The Chief Executive Officer of Tiktok, Shou Zi Chew faced an anxious moment after he was asked a barrage of questions from the United States Congress.
In order to defend his company from being blocked, Zi Chew spent more than five hours testifying in Congress.
However, the task will not be easy as the Congress committee already has strong reasons to block Tiktok before the meeting begins.
"Your platform should be banned, and I'm sure you'll say anything to avoid this decision," Energy and Commerce Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers said at the opening.
As a result, Chew has repeatedly tried to deny that the app shares data or has ties to the Chinese Communist Party as the US has previously alleged.
In addition, Congress also claimed that the app harms the mental health of children with videos that promote suicide, self-harm and eating disorders.
Even so, Chew said that Tiktok has been building a 'wall' for more than 2 years to protect the data of US users from unauthorized foreign access, maintaining that the application is safe for users, especially teenagers.
He said it has spent more than $1.5 billion on data security efforts under the name 'Project Texas' which now has nearly 1,500 full-time employees and contracts with Oracle Corp to store US user data.
Despite this, not a single lawmaker was 'swallowed' by the words because of his failure to announce any new efforts to protect privacy.
As of today, the use of TikTok has been banned from Congress, the White House, the US military and more than half of US states.
Several countries have also taken similar measures including New Zealand, Denmark, Canada, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK).
