When lawmakers spent practically 5 hours grilling TikTok CEO Shaw Tzu Chiu on Thursday, you can be forgiven for having a severe case of déjà vu.
For the previous 5 years, there have been congressional hearings in Washington which have seen social media executives take a beating — simply ask Meta Platforms Inc . META,
CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who sat in on a number of of those periods. Lawmakers additionally shouted down executives at Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG.
GOOGLE,
YouTube and Twitter Inc., and this is not even TikTok’s first journey to the halls of Congress.
What American leaders have not performed in years of spewing anger at social media firms is definitely move laws that units requirements for a way these firms use Individuals’ information. Main information privateness legal guidelines have been launched, together with different efforts such because the long-delayed and much-needed overhaul of the Kids’s On-line Privateness Safety Act, or COPPA, however Congress has did not act.
Extra from Teresa: Democrats vow to rein in large tech. They failed.
It was a degree even lamented by some members of the Home of Representatives as they weighed in on Chew about TikTok’s ties to the Chinese language authorities and Communist Social gathering as they take into account banning one of many world’s hottest social media apps. Rep. Darren Soto, R-Fla., whereas acknowledging that the genie has come out of the bottle with TikTok in each its inventive and darkish aspect, mentioned stricter regulation of social media firms is required.
“The answer, as I see it, is to control social media, TikTok and others….The primary secret is privateness….within the final Congress we shirked,” Soto mentioned, referring to Congress’ failure to move the bipartisan “American on information safety and privateness” final yr.
“For privateness, it is for us,” he mentioned.
Different members of Congress additionally cited final yr’s failed try to move a privateness legislation. Consultant Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, mentioned she agreed that the US wants a “complete set of information privateness legal guidelines,” including that there are issues throughout the trade, however there are some particular to TikTok.
Extra on the proposed invoice: Lengthy-awaited US information privateness invoice tries to meet up with state and European efforts
Within the absence of a federal information privateness legislation, some states are creating their very own measures, many modeled after the proposed federal invoice. However TechNet, a commerce affiliation and lobbying group, warned that the shortage of a federal information privateness legislation has led to a proliferation of privateness legal guidelines that can confuse shoppers and have a “chilling impact” on the economic system.
TechNet notes on its web site that as of 2018, 44 states have enacted 170 completely different, typically conflicting privateness legal guidelines, and 5 states have enacted their very own privateness legal guidelines.
Many within the tech neighborhood echoed these sentiments on Twitter in the course of the listening to, similar to this tweet by Alejandra Caraballo, a medical teacher on the Harvard Regulation Clinic: “Banning TikTok on privateness grounds is absurd when Meta can accumulate the identical information and promote it to governments and international firms “, she wrote on Twitter. “Clearly, surveillance shouldn’t be an issue if it is for revenue. The elemental downside is that there aren’t any significant information privateness legal guidelines within the US.”
Earlier on Wednesday, China mentioned it strongly opposes any compelled sale of TikTok after the Biden administration demanded that its mum or dad firm ByteDance both promote TikTok or face a ban. Quickly, the US authorities will resolve to ban the app in a roundabout way, and it appears that evidently it’s certainly into account.
Throughout the first a part of the listening to on Capitol Hill, Rep. Cathy Morris Rogers, D-Washington, advised Chew that TikTok must be banned within the US. After the listening to, many analysts speculated that Chu’s speech would result in a ban.
“We see ByteDance and TikTok ready 3-6 months to develop a sale to a US tech participant with a much less seemingly and intensely tough spin-off,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote. “If ByteDance fights this compelled sale, TikTok will seemingly be banned within the US by the tip of 2023.”
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Members of Congress have been unusually united in Thursday’s relentless grilling of Chew, with many showing to realize a greater understanding of the expertise after displaying abysmal ignorance in earlier hearings. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Virginia, even texted his two teenage sons to fact-check the TikTok CEO’s claims a few 60-minute restrict on teen use of the app (he mentioned he was met with jeers, whereas the 15-year-old mentioned he was in TikTok as a lot as he desires).
If Congress can study extra about expertise and unite of their hatred of social media apps, then they will come collectively to move the information privateness invoice this nation has wanted for a decade. That might be way more welcome than a extra scathing rant at tech executives or a ban on an app that brings much-needed pleasure to many Individuals.
