TikTok Tells US Lawmakers It Does Not Give Info To China

During the company's first appearance at a U.S. congressional hearing, TikTok executive Michael Beckerman said it does not give information to the Chinese government and has sought to safeguard U.S. data. Reuters reports: Michael Beckerman, TikTok's head of public policy for the Americas, became the company's first executive to appear before Congress, testifying to a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee. Republicans in particular pressed Beckerman on worries regarding TikTok's stewardship of data on the app's users. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the panel's top Republican, said she is concerned about TikTok's data collection, including audio and a user's location, and the potential for the Chinese government to gain access to the information. Blackburn questioned Beckerman on whether TikTok could resist giving data to China's government if material were to be demanded. "We do not share information with the Chinese government," Beckerman responded.

Under questioning by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Beckerman said that TikTok has "no affiliation" with Beijing ByteDance Technology, a ByteDance entity at which the Chinese government took a stake and a board seat this year. Beckerman also testified that TikTok's U.S. user data is stored in the United States, with backups in Singapore. "We have a world-renowned U.S. based security team that handles access," Beckerman said. Republican Senator John Thune said TikTok is perhaps more driven by content algorithms than even Facebook, as the app is famous for quickly learning what users find interesting and offering them those types of videos. Beckerman said TikTok would be willing to provide the app's algorithm moderation policies in order for the Senate panel to have it reviewed by independent experts.

Why?

[RitchCraft]

"user data is stored in the United States, with backups in Singapore."

Re:

[bodog]

Because Mai Fun is delicious?

Re:

[jobslave]

Simple, so the Chinese government can access the "US based data" but not while it's on US soil.

Re:

[LifesABeach]

also.
americans have big penises

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

"user data is stored in the United States, with backups in Singapore."

TikTok is popular throughout Southeast Asia, which has 700 million people. Singapore is a well-connected hub in the middle of that.

"We do not share information with the Chinese gov"

[bagofbeans]

That's fine, but unless the partners with whom the data

• is

shared are analysed, that doesn't mean that China (or any other country) doesn't get it by commercial means from a partner.

Re:

[jonadab]

You don't have to analyze that much. The US TikTok office might not *directly* share information with the Chinese government, but ByteDance (which owns TikTok) is pretty much a branch of the propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party, and they certainly do retrieve any information the Chinese government asks for. So it's basically "We don't _give_ information to the Chinese government. [They _take_ it. That's totally them not us. Surely you can't expect us to lock our parent company out of the serve

They will give China

[hdyoung]

whatever it asks for. That's the way the law works. In China, that is.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

whatever it asks for. That's the way the law works. In China, that is.

TikTok has its headquarters in Culver City, California. The CEO and most of the principal employees are western educated and live outside China.

ByteDance is located in Shenzhen but has limited control over TikTok. ByteDance does not have the authority to tell TikTok employees in America to violate American law.

The Xi regime has declared war on tech. So why should the techies do his bidding?

Re:

[bodog]

Ever heard the term Smoke and Mirrors? His 100% evasive answers to Crux re. Byte Dance Beijing was most illuminating...

Re:

[Dutch Gun]

How many TikTok/ByteDance employees have family in China? Canada has experienced how China is willing to grab random innocents to use as bargaining chips. It would be pretty simply to apply some pressure there.

Don't ever forget that this is a totalitarian regime that has no morals or scruples. Do you seriously have to ask "why comply?" If they haven't "asked" for data yet, it's because the data is of no real interest to China. Until it does, and then they'll "ask" for it, and the company WILL comply.

Re:They will give China

[fermion]

Byte Dance owns Tik tok. They are legally located in the Cayman Islands, a tactics used by the typical shady firm. It might be this way to protect Tik Tok from Chinese forces, it might be that Tik Tok wants to avoid laws on data protection and the like. There may be an arms length relationship between the two, but Byte Dance is most certainly controlled by the communist party.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It's the usual tax dodge, same as many US companies locate in the Caymans or Ireland. Same as many of them incorporate in Delaware for legal advantage.

If you don't trust TikTok then presumably you don't trust Apple or Microsoft either, seeing as they both operate in China (to an even greater extent than ByteDance), and are known to have been p0wned by the NSA.

Re:

[youngone]

That's the way the law works. In China, that is.

That's the way laws work everywhere. It is one of the things governments do, pass laws. People are supposed to follow them and if they don't there are sanctions.
It is true that in China the law is not always applied equally, but that is also true in the West.

Re:

[nitehawk214]

pro-China trolls are out in force today, I see.

Western nations have court systems. It isn't always fair, and dumb laws like the Patriot Act get passed all the time; but it isn't "do what we say or gulag" from the government.

Re:

[khchung]

whatever it asks for. That's the way the law works. In China, that is.

How soon people forget Snowden.

It is exactly the same in the US, except for the addition of a gag order to stop you from telling anyone. Look up what is NSL and why Lavabit was closed.

Unless the NSA simply directly read your data from the datacenter, then they don't even need to ask you.

Re:

[hdyoung]

Nope. The governments are not equivalent. China's government is an autocracy while the US government is elected. ELECTED. look up the word. Just in case you missed high school level civics, it means we CHOOSE OUR LEADERS. It's not a perfect system by any means, and Snowden is the perfect illustration of that, but there's no getting around the fact that ELECTED LEADERS HAVE LEGITIMACY THAT AUTOCRACTS DO NOT.

Re:

[Canberra1]

How to do it legally. China: Give us everything on this pesky journalist/troublemaker Company: Hey, IT, make a backup extract for CustomerID xyz12345 and export it to the questionable content server. Server has a CRON task to give lax permissions between 23:50 and 23.59. China knows to scan and download fresh material during the window hole. Plausible deniability. They gave China nothing, and the security breach was not detected, and nobody noticed the combined logs were missing a bit so close to the midni

He's probably telling the truth.

[CaptainLugnuts]

Why would they give it to them when they could sell it to them?

Never let an opportunity for profit go unexploited.

Re:

[PseudoThink]

Came to say this, but you're the real Captain! Sail on.

Re:

[hote.donkey]

for not having their heads chopped off?

Re:

[nitehawk214]

for not having their heads chopped off?

Or their families that still live in China, for workers in other countries.

Plus consider the reverse

[aepervius]

While it is not PROVEN that tiktok give info to the chinese government, the reverse for many US company has been demonstrated to be true for many US company. Unless slashdot forgot the snowden reveletations ? So as a non US person, should I care mor about tiktok, than ,say , cisco ? Nope. Get all stuffy tiktok data you want China.

FTFY

[dohzer]

TikTok 'Tells' US Lawmakers It Does Not Give Info To China

Not that they know of

[MrKaos]

I'm sure that not everyone that works for them, works for them.

India banned TikTok last year

[shm]

Tiktok was banned as part of a crackdown on dozens if not hundreds of Chinese apps.

More interesting was the ban on Chinese financial loan shark apps.

Title of this /. post is not true

[alabamatoy]

I watched the testimony, and tiktok did NOT deny that China entity was an affiliate with which data would be shared. He refused to deny it (he also refused to confirm it). So from what I heard the man say, the title of this post is a factually false statement.

Just make your app less creepy

[Dusanyu]

And all of this congress issue goes away Just stop scanning people faces, https://www.iphonehacks.com/20... [iphonehacks.com] looking into there clipboard and justifying it with the most common justification used by untrustworthy governments https://news.softpedia.com/new... [softpedia.com] you know the type of stuff that if it was the local police department was doing to you you wild ask to see a warrant

How Silly...

[SlideWRX]

Why would we give it back to them after they gave it to us? What an odd concept, Senator.