The CEO of TikTok is testifying before Congress for the first time

What are the Threats to the Middle of the Pack? The Attacks against Russia in Ukraine and the Role of Wikipedia’s Custodians

TikTok isunique in terms of data harvesting and strategic analytics and I don’t believe Beijing will allow it to fall into the hands of US interests.

US officials were worried that the Chinese government could force Byte Dance to hand over information that could be used for espionage or misinformation. As CNN has previously reported, independent security experts have said that type of access is a possibility, though there has been no reported incident of such access to date.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on, Ukrainian forces have proved resilient and mounted increasingly intense counterattacks on Kremlin forces. But as the conflict evolves, it is entering an ominous phase of drone warfare. Russia has begun launching attacks using Iranian suicide drones to cause damage that is difficult to defend against. With NATO officials watching closely and Russian president Putin threatening a nuclear strike, we look at the indicators available to the global community to see if Russia is actually preparing to use nuclear weapons.

A number of deeply problematic vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Exchange Server has left researchers concerned that the platform isn’t getting development resources it needs anymore, and customers should seriously consider migrating to cloud email hosting. And new research examines how Wikipedia’s custodians ferret out state-sponsored disinformation campaigns in the crowdsourced encyclopedia’s entries.

If you’re worried about the ongoing threat of ransomware attacks around the world, researchers pointed out this week that middle-of-the-pack groups like the notorious gang Vice Society are maximizing profits and minimizing their exposure by investing very little in technical innovation. They simply run the few operations they can to target those under-funded sectors. We have a guide to take care of your security if you are looking for something to do.

What Have We Don’t Know About Cloud Misconfigurations and Why We Shouldn’t (Mis)Releve It?

Wait, there is more! Each week, we highlight the news we didn’t cover in-depth ourselves. To read the full story, click on the headlines. Staying safe out there is what we need to do.

Microsoft said this week that a misconfiguration exposed the data of some prospective customers of its cloud services. The leak to Microsoft was disclosed by researchers from the Threat Intelligence firm, and the exposure was quickly closed. The exposed information stretched back to at least the beginning of 2016 and up to August of this year according to the report. The researchers linked the data to over 67,000 organizations. Microsoft said the exposed data included names, company names, phone numbers, email addresses, and files sent between potential customers and one of its authorized partners. Cloud misconfigurations have been a longstanding security risk and have resulted in numerous exposures.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-bytedance-americans-data-security-roundup/

The Impact of US Cyber Security Labeling on Internet of Things Security: Implications for Online Security and Community Surveillance in the United States

There are no easy answers to improve the longstanding security dumpster fire created by cheap, undefended internet of things devices in homes and businesses around the world. After years of issues, Singapore and Germany have found a way to make internet-connected cameras and other objects more secure. The labels give consumers a better understanding of protections built into different devices and give manufacturers incentive to improve practices and get a gold seal. The United States made a step towards this direction this week. A label similar to EnergyStar for Internet of Things digital security will be announced in the near future by the White House. The administration held a summit with industry organizations and companies this week to discuss standards. The National Security Council stated that a labeling program to secure such devices would provide American consumers with the peace of mind that the technology being brought into their homes is safe.

The Washington Post quoted sources who said the FBI seized documents related to the Iran and US intelligence operations in China from the Mar-a-Lago residence of former President Trump. Experts say that unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents would pose multiple risks. The Post wrote that people aiding US intelligence efforts could be at risk. The information could also potentially motivate retaliation by other countries against the US.

Open internet proponents were relieved last month when an American candidate beat a Russian challenger in an election to run the International Telecommunications Union, an important international standards body tasked with cross-boundary communications. We looked at how vulnerable the internet infrastructure is and how it is vulnerable to the perils of the undersea cables.

Researchers see evidence that the US’s new legal climate for abortion access is promoting a culture of community surveillance, a hallmark of authoritarian states in which neighbors and friends are encouraged to report possible wrongdoing. And surveillance is on the rise in soccer stadiums around the world as well. The eight stadiums that will host the World Cup in Qatari will be packed with more than 15,000 cameras to monitor spectators.

The tiktokeu-privacy-policy-security-roundup: Liz Truss is having a rough time

Rust, the more secure, memory safe programming language, is making inroads across the tech industry, offering hope for a massive swath of common vulnerabilities to eventually be eliminated. In the meantime, we’ve got a roundup of the most important vulnerabilities that you can—and should!—patch right now.

Liz Truss is having a rough time. The Mail on Sunday reported that Russian agents hacked into her cell phone while she was the UK’s foreign minister. The breach allegedly allowed these Russian operatives to intercept messages between Truss and officials in other countries, including messages about Ukraine. The Mail report further claims that former prime minister Boris Johnson and cabinet secretary Simon Case suppressed the breach. The Labor Party has called for an immediate investigation into their Conservative opponents. “There are immensely important national security issues raised by an attack like this by a hostile state which will have been taken extremely seriously by our intelligence and security agencies,” Labor Party shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said last weekend. There are serious questions surrounding why and how this information has been leaked orreleased right now, which must be investigated.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-eu-privacy-policy-security-roundup/

The Jack Dorsey Cash App isn’t Using Money for Business: Investigations, Public Comments, and a Response to the Defendend

This week a Jack Dorsey creation is facing new heat. According to a Forbes investigation, the Cash App is helping fuel sex trafficking in the US and elsewhere. Based on police records, “hundreds of court filings,” and claims by former Cash App employees, the investigation found rampant use of the Cash App in sex trafficking and other crimes. The company, which is owned by Dorsey-led Block Inc., maintains that it “does not tolerate illegal activity on Cash App” and has staff dedicated to working with law enforcement. Meanwhile, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that although rival payment platforms like PayPal provide the the center with tips about potential child abuse facilitated by their services, Forbes writes, “Block hasn’t provided any tips, ever.”

The US Treasury Department this week said US financial institutions facilitated ransomware payments totaling nearly $1.2 billion in 2021—a 200 percent increase since 2020. The White House held an international summit aimed at stopping the rise of terrorist type of software called ransomware, which allows attackers to hold a target’s files for a long time until they pay a fee. Himamauli Das, acting director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, said in a statement that “ransomware—including attacks perpetrated by Russian-linked actors—remain a serious threat to our national and economic security. The amount of money is not taken into account when it comes to the costs and financial consequences that come from cyberattacks outside of the payment itself.

The TikTok measure, limited in its impact on the app’s wider US user base, highlights how quickly lawmakers can act when there is national security fear, bipartisan anti-China suspicions, and more targeted proposals.

The proposed legislation would “block and prohibit all transactions” in the United States by social media companies with at least one million monthly users that are based in, or under the “substantial influence” of, countries that are considered foreign adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

Donald Trump signed an executive order banning TikTok in 2020. TikTok sued, and the ban was never enforced.

In a separate statement on Thursday that did not address or name TikTok specifically, the US Treasury Department — the agency that chairs the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) — warned that it “will not clear any transaction unless it determines there are no unresolved national security concerns.”

McQuaide added that they were well underway with the plans they had developed under the control of the country’s top national security agencies.

Reply to “Comment on ‘The Rise and Fall of the Tik Tokamak App'” by Chew and Psaki

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for a daily digest about the changing media landscape.

The app is used for marketing and recruiting purposes by some public universities and government agencies, but at least sixteen states are banning the app from their networks.

The Senate-passed bill would provide exceptions for “law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, and security researchers.”

Chew is slated to unveil new data during the hearing showing that the app has been downloaded by more than 150 million Americans and used by 5 million US businesses. This is part of his attempt to convince lawmakers that TikTok is integrally woven into the hearts and minds of tens of millions of Americans and poses no national security risk. It is a tall order, and may be impossible.

On March 10, two weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the White House convened a Zoom call with 30 prominent TikTok creators. Jen Psaki, then the White House press secretary, and members of the National Security Council staff briefed the creators, who together had tens of millions of followers, on the latest news from the conflict and the White House’s goals and priorities. The previous summer the White House recruited dozens of Tik Tokers to help encourage young people to get vaccine against Covid.

While the company denies it would ever be used for nefarious purposes, national security experts say China-based businesses usually have to give unfettered access to the authoritarian regime if information is ever sought.

Reply to Zi Chew’s Sentiment to ByteDance: What Have They Done About The TikTok App?

Most drastic measures, like the ban on federal government devices, have not advanced due to the lack of political will or courts stopping them.

“I think some concern about TikTok is warranted,” said Julian McAuley, a professor of computer science at the University of California San Diego, who noted that the main difference between TikTok and other social media apps is that TikTok is much more driven by user-specific recommendations.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Zi Chew will say, according to written testimony released by the House committee on Tuesday night.

“I think it is overblown to the degree that social media companies are aware of users on an individual level,” he said.

Oberwetter said that TikTok believes in the process of making sure the video app doesn’t get manipulated by the Chinese government.

Another possible resolution is that the committee is satisfied with the steps TikTok has taken to ensure there is a firewall between U.S. user data and ByteDance employees in Beijing and the Chinese government.

The deliberations are secret and happen behind closed doors. It’s unclear when the committee will finish its investigation or which way it is leaning.

The Data Privacy of ByteDance, Facebook, Twitter, and Google in the United States is not a Threat to China or any Other Country

Since 2020, all state devices have been banned in Nebraska. So has the Florida Department of Financial Services. Louisiana and West Virginia each announced partial bans.

Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country. However, it’s still possible. You don’t have to take my word for it. Rather, our approach has been to work transparently and cooperatively with the U.S. government and Oracle to design robust solutions to address concerns about TikTok’s heritage.

But for others, it won’t move the needle. “Some lawmakers, frankly, do not care what ads TikTok is taking out, what pledges it’s making on its blog about independence, data privacy … They see an unmitigable risk of Chinese government access to data and/or influence over content, and so are going to push for a complete ban.”

“It certainly makes sense, then, for U.S. soldiers to be told, ‘Hey, don’t use the app because it might share your location information with other entities,” said Chander. “As far as the weather app is concerned, it’s also true of lots of other apps that are in your phone, whether they’re owned by China or not.”

Ryan Calo is a professor of law and information science at the University of Washington. He says that, while data privacy in the United States still needs much improvement, the proposed legislation is more about geopolitical tensions and less about TikTok specifically.

“Today, the threat that everyone is talking about is TikTok, and how it could enable surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party, or facilitate the spread of malign influence campaigns in the U.S. Before TikTok, however, it was Huawei and ZTE, which threatened our nation’s telecommunications networks,” Warner said in a statement Tuesday. We need to have a comprehensive, risk-based approach that tackles proactively sources of potentially dangerous technology before it gets to America, so we aren’t scrambling to catch up when they are already ubiquitous.

It’s always easy to say a foreign government is a threat and that I am protecting you from that government. I think we need to be careful about how politicized that can be in order to achieve political ends.

Zi Chew and the New Rules for Privacy: The ByteDance vs. China debate on key issues of privacy in the Internet era

“TikTok will remain a platform for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government,” Zi Chew will planning to say, according to excerpts of his remarks. We will make safety a top priority for teenagers.

“I think we should be thinking about the consequences of having so much commercial intelligence gathering taking place of our citizens in the U.S,” he said. To address it, we should pass rules for privacy, which is something that the Federal Trade Commission seems very interested in doing, but not in this ad hoc posturing way.

Some of the bills are difficult to pass if lobbying is not part of the equation. It is more difficult to impose sweeping regulations on an entire industry than it is to pass a bill regarding how the US government handles its own technology.

The stark difference between the two shows how lobbying and policy questions can be used to break a bill. It also hints at how a select few Big Tech companies continue to maintain their dominance in the market and their centrality in the lives of countless US households.

TikTok is not present in China. The theory goes that since the Chinese government has a lot of leverage on businesses, ByteDance and TikTok could have to cooperate with a broad range of security activities.

Beckerman told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday that they think a lot of the issues can be solved by the ongoing government negotiations.

The ByteDance lobbying of Silicon Valley giants and the AICOA bill stumbled after the Senate failed to pass a proposal to repeal Section 230

In 2019, ByteDance had 17 lobbyists and spent $270,000 on lobbying, according to public records gathered by the transparency group OpenSecrets. By the end of last year, its lobbyist count had more than doubled and the company had spent nearly $5.2 million on lobbying.

The internet industry spent upwards of 20 million dollars on lobbying last year. Next was Amazon at $19 million, then Google at almost $10 million. TikTok’s parent actually spent less than a tenth of the amount on lobbying, which made them number four on the list.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) would prevent Amazon from being able to compete with third-party sellers on its own marketplace because of new barriers created by the bill. That legislation was the result of a House investigation into the tech industry, which concluded that most of the big tech companies were effectively monopolies.

For a brief moment this month, lawmakers seemed poised to pass a bill that could force Meta, Google and other platforms to pay news organizations a larger share of ad revenues. But the legislation stumbled after Meta warned it could have to drop news content from its platforms altogether if the bill passed.

Time and again, Silicon Valley’s biggest players have maneuvered expertly in Washington, defending their turf from lawmakers keen to knock them down a peg.

In comparison, the decisions about the rules the government may impose on tech platforms has called into question how those rules will affect different parts of the economy, from small businesses to individual users.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act may raise First Amendment issues in some cases, as is shown by the proposal to revision the tech industry’s decades-old moderation liability shield. Democrats have said Section 230 should be changed because it gives social media companies a pass to leave some hate speech and offensive content unaddressed, while Republicans have called for changes to the law so that platforms can be pressured to remove less content.

The cross-cutting politics and the technical challenges of regulating an entire sector of technology, not to mention the potential consequences for the economy of screwing it up, have combined to make it genuinely difficult for lawmakers to reach an accord.

Towards Establishing a Republican Brand in Silicon Valley: Shou Chew & the Cosmic Axios Campaign

It’s important that a Republican brand is established. According to the University of California San Diego’s professor of political science, Republicans stand up to China and are taking a strong stance.

Our CEO, Shou Chew, shares a special message on behalf of the entire TikTok team to thank our community of 150 million Americans ahead of his congressional hearing later this week.

Earlier this month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was reportedly considering offering a bill to ban a broader “category of applications” that could be applied to other apps that pose security risks, according to Axios.

The app, owned by ByteDance, Inc., has been under fire since the Trump administration, when the former president signed an executive order to enforce a nationwide ban of the app, but ByteDance sued and it never went through.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) demanded that Apple and Google “immediately” remove TikTok from their app stores in a letter addressed to the companies’ chief executives, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, Thursday.

At the New York Times DealBook summit last year, the CEO of TikTok spoke about their plans to move all data from Singapore and Virginia to the US, in a new subsidiary called TikTok US.

The focus of the hearing was national security, but multiple lawmakers raised concerns about the impact of TikTok on children.

Apple has much to lose regarding its relationship with both the US and China. Cook is able to maintain working relationships with the Chinese government and manufacturers thanks to his success at Apple.

What will China do when it comes to the US? Developing a Resilient China through the India’s TikTok Blockade

Washington is expected to take action. “We will see limitations this year,” says Mira Ricardel, a former White House deputy national security adviser now at the Chertoff Group advising businesses on regulations. There is a common view that can lead to something. Here is what that something may look like.

The India’s TikTok blockade is hard to break. A few small ISPs permit access, according to NetBlocks. And Ram Sundara Raman, lead developer for the University of Michigan’s Censored Planet project, says he was able to watch videos during a visit to India using the app he had downloaded in the US. But the ban has forced many Indian users to turn toward rival services, including from Google and Facebook, and has caused turmoil for influencers who built businesses on TikTok.

It would have barred cloud providers from doing business with the company after Trump ordered an immediate ban on app stores distributing TikTok. People caught dodging the order could be fined or sentenced to prison. “We wanted to start at the root, where it comes into the US, and extract it that way,” says Ivan Kanapathy, who was China director for Trump’s National Security Council and is now vice president at policy consultancy Beacon Global Strategies.

The company recently launched a charm offensive that included rapid-fire meetings with TikTok CEO in Washington, new transparency tools on the app, and a first-ever tour of its corporate campus in the Los Angeles area.

“There’s a lot of performative action going on,” said Adam Segal, a Chinese technology policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. He said that it was a desire to show resilience on the part of China.

What Will American Tech Executives Tell Us About the TikTok App and What Will They Do in the United States? An Expert Report on the Case

A video of an American tech executive wearing a hoodie and shirt shows that almost half of the US is going to TikTok just to have fun. “This comes at a pivotal moment for us. Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok, now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.”

The relationship between Oracle and TikTok began when the company was scrambling to find U.S.-based cloud server when Trump put the app out of business.

TikToks officials said on Tuesday that they expected USDS to hire 2,500 people who had undergone high-level background checks. None of the people hired would be Chinese.

Still, aggregate data, like what kind of content is trending on the app or in what regions certain kind of videos are popular, can be analyzed by corporate employees in Beijing who would need to be granted special permission from the U.S. data security team.

The plan addresses many of the major security concerns U.S. officials have, said Jim Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, but that is no guarantee it will be approved.

“The Oracle plan would work,” Lewis said. This is a standard kind of thing. TikTok has become so emotional, however, that a reasonable solution may not be enough.”

If a deal isn’t agreed, TikTok will be stuck in limbo and possibly sold to an American tech firm.

TikTok: A Study of the Project Texas Data Security Plan for a Large-Scale, Open-source Content Moderation App

Assuming the deal passes muster, though, Segal agreed that it resolves the bulk of the data security concerns by allowing inspections of its algorithm and transferring U.S. user data to Oracle.

Many details about Project Texas have trickled out in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Reuters, but Tuesday’s gathering marked one of the first times the company has given an official briefing on the plan.

TikTok will open centers in Washington, Dublin and Singapore to give tours to journalists and civil society groups in order to see how the secretive app works.

The game was used to find out if a video broke TikTok’s rules or not.

The facilities will also feature server rooms where visitors who sign non-disclosure agreements can review TikTok’s entire source code, though journalists are not given an opportunity to do this.

Tech journalist Casey Newton of the newsletter Platformer said the content moderation game brought home just how tricky it is for the thousands of people who have to make trade-offs every day on an endless flood of videos, but it was largely beside the point.

The TikTok reps hope that Congress will have a more deliberative approach to issues due to the details of their comprehensive plans being shared with the full Committee.

“If you’re certainly willing to fly a balloon over your continental airspace—and have people see it with a naked eye—what would make you not weaponize data? Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, said that he would like to see the app on the phone of 60 million Americans used to influence political debate in this country.

Mike Rounds, a Republican senator from South Dakota says that there is no question about how much data they are trying to gather and how much it will add up to. The large amount of data is never used, but it is the small pieces that add up. They are working on it. They are patient. They see us as threats, and they’re collecting data.

“None of the suggested … efforts were particularly relevant to my concerns,” senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat of Colorado, told congressional reporters after hosting Chew in his office last week.

Tik Tok ban and its country-issued mobile devices are a loaded gun, as suggested by Gen. Paul Nakasone

TORONTO — Canada announced Monday it is banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices, reflecting widening worries from Western officials over the Chinese-owned video sharing app.

Canada’s federal privacy watchdog and provincial counterparts in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec plan to investigate the app regarding its compliance with Canadian privacy legislation.

Reports about possible Chinese interference in the Canadian elections prompted the opposition to call for a public inquiry.

“It’s not only the fact that you can influence something, but you can also turn off the message as well when you have such a large population of listeners,” Gen. Paul Nakasone said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Our status has been discussed publicly in a way that ignores the facts of the agreement and what has already been achieved. Brooke Oberwetter from Tik Tok said that they will deliver a comprehensive national security plan for the American people.

The Commerce Department will be given the power to developmitigation measures up to and including a ban, under a bipartisan Senate bill expected to be unveiled on Tuesday.

When asked to show proof of Chinese government involvement in ByteDance, US officials often don’t offer much in the way of information.

“People are always looking for the smoking gun in these technologies,” NSA Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce told reporters in December. I describe it as a loaded gun.

CNN Primetime: Is Time Up for TikTok? The Singaporean CEO, CEO, and a Future Campaign to Save the App

We also learn that TikTok has 7,000 American employees, which is less than the 10,000 or more that TikTok aimed for in 2020 but a big leap over the 1,400 US headcount that year.

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul has called TikTok a “spy balloon in your phone,” and fellow Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher has called TikTok “digital fentanyl.”

Tensions between the U.S. and China have been on the rise in recent years, as federal officials worry about China’s growing technological prowess. Washington is monitoring military displays in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait as well as China’s balloon crossing across the U.S.

CNN is going to host a special about issues such as TikTok’s ties to China and the impact on young people’s mental health, as a number of lawmakers have raised national security concerns about the app. Watch “CNN Primetime: Is time up for TikTok?” Thursday, March 23 at 9 p.m. ET.

The CEO of a company tried to save his company at a conference that talked about corporate leadership and emotional intelligence.

Chew, a Singaporean who has largely stayed out of the spotlight since taking over TikTok in 2021, recently sat for interviews with multiple US newspapers and this week showed up in a video on the corporate TikTok account to highlight the vast reach of the app, which he revealed now has more than 150 million users in the United States.

Dozens of social media creators are gathered on the steps of the Capitol for a press conference. The company is paying for a blitz of advertisements for a Beltway audience. American small business owners who rely on the platform for their livelihoods are highlighted in a docuseries last week.

That all changed in recent weeks. Chew testified before Congress on Thursday for the first time, in a closely-watched hearing about the platform’s potential national security risks and its impact on younger users. Ahead of his appearance, Chew went on a media tour, speaking with multiple US newspapers and meeting behind closed doors with members of Congress as part of a broader messaging campaign to help save the app in the United States.

The Impact of China on TikTok and the PR Push to Limit Screen Time Time for Teens Under 18: Stories of American Business Owners and Creators

TikTok recently set a default one-hour daily screen time limit on every account for users under 18 in one of the most aggressive moves yet by a social media company to prevent teens from endlessly scrolling. It rolled out a feature that aimed to offer more information to users about why its powerful algorithm recommends certain videos. The company promised more openness to researchers.

The series told the stories of American business owners and creators. The first of the 60-second clips features a Mississippi soap maker with a deep Southern accent who built her company on the app, and the second features an educator who quit his job to focus on sharing informational videos on TikTok aimed at teaching toddlers how to read.

A disabled Asian American creator, a small business owner from South Carolina, and an Ohio based chef will be at the event. Some of the creators have hundreds of thousand or even millions of followers on TikTok.

Sherman expressed skepticism about the PR push, mostly because of how divided Washington is right now.

Lindsay Gorman, a senior fellow for emerging technologies at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy and a former Biden administration adviser, said that “by and large, TikTok’s lobbying efforts so far have been pretty ineffective.”

The problem of China has gotten a lot more attention and there is more awareness of it according to the top Democrat on the new House Select Committee on China.

An unprecedented regulation came into effect in March of 2022 that required internet companies to register their recommendation schemes with the Cyberspace Administration, which reports to the President.

He said that Beijing will not accept a deal that removes TikTok’s algorithm from its control.

TikTok’s algorithms, which keep users glued to the app, are believed to be key to its success. Users are pushed videos they actually like and want to watch by the recommendations given by the algorithms.

A Chinese regulator of digital and traditional media is asking Beijing to sell its technology to sell it: a comment on a top Chinese professor at the University of International Business and Economics

The Chinese state media published a commentary by a professor at the University of International Business and Economics who said that ByteDance would need to get a license from Beijing to sell its technology.

Cui Fan said that “some cutting-edge technologies might impact national security and public welfare, and need to be included in [export control] management.”

A senior official from the Chinese regulator of digital and traditional media visited Bytedance’s offices last week. According to a statement posted on the website of the regulatory body, he wants the company to improve the use of recommendation algorithm and strengthen the review of online content.

In April 2021, a Chinese government entity acquired a “golden share” of 1% in a Beijing subsidiary of ByteDance, according to business data platform Qichacha. The subsidiary controls operating licenses for Douyin, TikTok’s sister app in China, and Toutiao, a news aggregation app.

The rules governing “deep synthesis” also took effect at that time. They are going to restrict the use of audio and text-generation software. Such technologies underpin popular apps such as ChatGPT.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/22/tech/china-us-tiktok-sale-ban-intl-hnk/index.html

How does TikTok secure itself and its users? The role of Chew, the CEO, and the board of ByteDance

“A change of TikTok’s ownership solves nothing,” he said. “The real issue is general data security and who ultimately has access to that data, by whatever means, regardless of legal ownership.”

The true test, he said, is whether user data can be effectively ring-fenced and privacy and security can be achieved through data segregation, encryption and other means.

As for a solution, Silvers expects both sides to try to “finesse a compromise” where US concerns are addressed, but Beijing still retains control over TikTok.

TikTok has fully penetrated U.S. culture. Take for instance a trip to grocery chain Trader Joe’s, which features an “as seen on TikTok” section promoting foods made popular by TikTok. Or, for example, Barnes & Noble stores, with tables dedicated to #BookTok. TikTok has probably had themost obvious influence on the music industry; if a song is popular on TikTok it will land at the top of the charts.

The Chief Operating Officer of the short-form video app was at the keynote event for the industry convention last summer, when it was TikTok as the title sponsor.

ByteDance has a board of shareholder and employee representatives, as well as global investors, and it is organized the same way you would expect an internet company to be. “I am responsible for the decisions at TikTok,” Chew re-emphasized, “but, ultimately, I have to be responsible to the shareholders and to the board as well.”

It’s not the first time TikTok has played up the nationality of its CEO. In 2020, as it faced growing pressure from the Trump administration, TikTok repeatedly defended itself against critics by touting its “American CEO,” Kevin Mayer, a former executive at one of the most iconic US companies, Disney.

“I think they brought him in specifically because, frankly, he’s not a Chinese national, and Singapore traditionally straddles the fence of these worlds,” said Ivan Kanapathy, a former director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia on the White House’s National Security Council staff and current senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “And they’re quite good at it, geopolitically.”

After completing his mandatory military service in Singapore, Chew attended university in London before graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2010. He was exposed to Silicon Valley while at Harvard, after he interned one summer at a “startup” that “was called Facebook,” as he put it in an alumni spotlight.

Some US tech execs who can’t seem to help out on social media will find it refreshing. Matthew Quint is the director of the center on global brand leadership at the Columbia Business School, and he said that it may be due to cultural differences from leading a massive tech company with a Chinese parent company. Chinese technology companies and leaders who have drawn too much attention to themselves have faced a tough government crackdown.

Why does tiktok-ceo-hearing begin and end now? A Republican Rep. McMorris Rodgers explains the case of TikTok

The hearing lasted for five hours and started with calls to ban the app in the United States. It offered a vivid display of the bipartisan push to crack down on the popular short-form video app and the company’s uphill battle to improve relations with Washington.

The chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Republican Rep. McMorris Rodgers, told the audience at the hearing that the platform should be banned.

The Chinese government has made clear that the company is not an arm of the government. Numerous members of Congress interrupted the chief executive’s testimony to say they simply don’t believe him.

Chew was the one who looked in and saw no evidence of this happening. Their data will be stored in the United States by an American company that is overseen by American personnel. The risk of a government going to American companies asking for data would be the same as it is in other countries.

“We are committed to be very transparent with our users about what we collect,” Chew said. I don’t think what we collect is more than most players.

Citing examples of harmful content served to children, he said, “it is unacceptable, sir, that even after knowing all these dangers, you still claim that TikTok is something grand to behold.”

A Republican from Ohio named Bob Latta accused TikTok of promoting a video on the blackout challenge that led to a 10-year-old girl’s death.

There is a lack of moderation which leaves room for children to be exposed to stuff that promotes self harm, according to a Republican congressman.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/tech/tiktok-ceo-hearing/index.html

Tim Kahler, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the Tune of the TikTok Hearing: CNN’s Tony Crdenas

A California Democrat, Tony Crdenas, has been critical of how Chew has responded to the questions and compared him to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg who has done the same.

One of the few people to unite this committee is you, Crdenas said. “You remind me a lot of Mark Zuckerberg. I told my staff he was like a good dancer with words, like Fred Astaire. And you are doing the same today. Many of your answers are ambiguous, not yes or no.

CNN was told that Chew has been working for the last week in preparation for his appearance. TikTok personnel have worked to sharpen and polish Chew’s presentation during these sessions. They have played the roles of lawmakers with various questioning styles, peppering Chew with practice queries and scenarios to ready him for hours of relentless interrogation.

The hearing was summed up by a single exchange following the lengthy critique of TikTok by Rep. Kat Cammack.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/tech/tiktok-ceo-hearing/index.html

CFIUS: A Social Media Platform for the Protection of National Security in U.S. Banking and Financial Crimes. A Conversation with Jimmy Zhou

“Broadly speaking, some transactions can present data security risks — including providing a foreign person or government with access to troves of Americans’ sensitive personal data as well as access to intellectual property, source code, or other potentially sensitive information,” a Department spokesperson said. “CFIUS, on a case-by-case basis, will ensure the protection of national security, including to prevent the misuse of data through espionage, tracking, and other means that threaten national security.”

There are a lot of risks that are hypothetical and theoretical. There is nothing I have seen that supports the claim. I am eagerly awaiting discussions where we can talk about evidence and then we can address the concerns that are being raised.”

The mother of Jimmy Zhou moved to the US from China a few years before he was born. Out of all the messaging apps to choose from, there’s only one his mother feels comfortable using—in fact, it’s the only app she knows how to use.

It is not a messaging app, but more than that. It integrates social media features and creates a platform where it is easy to build businesses and communities. People in Asian diasporas and people who live and work in Asian communities in the US can use the app to make connections, communicate and post updates to their friends.