TikTok CEO Shou Chew will testify in a listening to earlier than the U.S. Home Committee on Power and Commerce this Thursday, March 23, at 10:00 a.m. ET.
As CEO, Chew is accountable for TikTok’s enterprise operations and strategic choices.
The “TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Knowledge Privateness and Defend Youngsters from On-line Harms” listening to can be streamed stay on the Power and Commerce Committee’s website.
Based on written testimony submitted by Chew, the listening to will concentrate on TikTok’s alleged dedication to transparency, teen security, client privateness, and information safety.
It additionally seems to broach the subject of misconceptions concerning the platform, resembling its connection to the Chinese language authorities by way of its dad or mum firm, ByteDance.
Chew shared a particular message with TikTok yesterday from Washington, D.C., to thank 150 million customers, 5 million companies, and seven,000 staff within the U.S. for serving to construct the TikTok neighborhood.
@tiktokOur CEO, Shou Chew, shares a particular message on behalf of the whole TikTok workforce to thank our neighborhood of 150 million Individuals forward of his congressional listening to later this week.♬ original sound – TikTok
The video has acquired over 85k feedback from customers, many describing how TikTok has allowed them to work together with individuals worldwide and discover unbiased information, new views, academic content material, inspiration, and pleasure.
TikTok Updates Tips And Affords Extra Academic Content material
TikTok has been making vital modifications to its platform to deal with many of those considerations earlier than this listening to to evade a complete U.S. ban on the platform.
Beneath is an summary of some efforts by TikTok to rehab its notion earlier than the listening to.
Updated Community Guidelines – TikTok up to date neighborhood pointers and shared its Group Rules to show dedication to protecting the platform secure and inclusive for all customers.
For You Feed Refresh – TikTok recommends content material to customers based mostly on their engagement with content material and creators. For customers who really feel that suggestions not align with their pursuits, TikTok launched the flexibility to refresh the For You Web page, permitting them to obtain contemporary suggestions as in the event that they began a brand new account.
STEM Feed – To enhance the standard of academic content material on TikTok, it’ll introduce a STEM feed for content material centered on Science, Know-how, Engineering, and Arithmetic. Not like the content material that seems when customers search the #STEM hashtag, TikTok says that Frequent Sense Networks and Poynter will evaluate STEM feed content material to make sure it’s secure for youthful audiences and factually correct.
This might make it extra just like the model of TikTok in China – Douyin – that promotes educational content to youthful audiences over entertaining content material.
Series Monetization – To encourage creators to create in-depth, informative content material, TikTok launched a brand new monetization program for Collection content material. Collection permits creators to earn revenue by placing as much as 80 movies with as much as 20 minutes in size, every behind a paywall.
Extra Congressional Efforts To Limit TikTok
The TikTok listening to tomorrow isn’t the one Congressional effort to restrict or ban applied sciences like TikTok.
Earlier this month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) launched the RESTRICT Act (Limiting the Emergence of Safety Threats that Threat Info and Communications Know-how), which might create a proper course of for the federal government to evaluate and mitigate dangers of expertise originating in international locations like China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.
Organizations just like the Tech Oversight Challenge have identified that Congress ought to look past TikTok and examine related dangers to nationwide safety and youthful audiences posed by different Big Tech platforms like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta.
We’ll observe tomorrow’s hearing intently – you should definitely come again for our protection to find out how this may have an effect on customers and predict what is going to occur subsequent.
Featured Picture: Alex Verrone/Shutterstock
