‘Senator, am Singaporean: TikTok CEO grilled on app’s China links

He faces barrage of questions ranging from alleged censorship to his own citizenship

- Bhagyashree Garekar

WASHINGTON - TikTok's Chinese parentage has put its Singaporean chief executive Chew Shou Zi in the hot seat again at a congressional hearing focused on safety for children on social media platforms.

In his second appearance before US lawmakers in less than a year, Mr Chew faced a barrage of questions ranging from TikTok's Chinese ownership to its alleged censorship of political topics and even his own citizenship.

The video-sharing app's popularity among American teenagers and young adults is undisputed. That it is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance has made it a punching bag at a time when acute rivalry with China informs nearly every aspect of US policymaking.

Apart from Mr Chew, four other big tech chiefs also testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at Capitol Hill on Jan 31.

Meta's Mr Mark Zuckerberg, Snap's Mr Evan Spiegel, X's Ms Linda Yaccarino and Discord's Mr Jason Citron were asked to account for the proliferation of child sexual abuse materials on their platforms and were warned that laws would be amended to let victims sue tech platforms.

Mr Zuckerberg took the most heat. At one point, he was asked to turn around and face the parents standing at the back, holding placards for children who had been victims of abuse online.

He expressed regret about what they had experienced, and promised to prevent it from happening to others.

Mr Chew, meanwhile, was singled out for TikTok's China connection.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, alleged that while China's version of TikTok, called Douyin, served up beneficial and educational materials to children in China, it threw up negative content for children in America.

"If you look at what is on TikTok in China, you are promoting to kids science and maths videos, educational videos. You limit the amount of time kids can be on TikTok," said Mr Cruz, addressing Mr Chew.