Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, faced a panel of federal lawmakers Thursday and sought to calm their issues concerning the social media platform on account of its ties to China and possible security risks that would come up because of this.
Chew, 40, took the helm of TikTok about two years in the past after spending most of his profession in funding banking and enterprise capital.
Here is what it’s good to know.
Who’s Shou Zi Chew?
Chew, born in January 1983 in Singapore, accomplished obligatory army service for the Singaporean authorities as a teen. then moved to England to enroll at College Faculty London. After incomes a bachelor’s diploma in economics, he then landed a job as an funding banker for Goldman Sachs in London.
A number of years later, he left that position to maneuver once more — this time to the USA — to enroll in Harvard Enterprise College in 2008. Whereas nonetheless at Harvard, Chew took an internship in 2009 at a then-modest startup expertise firm referred to as Fb.
After graduating from Harvard in 2010, Chew spent a decade working for a enterprise capital agency in Hong Kong and a shopper electronics producer in Beijing.
In 2021, he joined TikTok and its mother or father firm ByteDance in a twin position of TikTok CEO and ByteDance chief monetary officer. Chew experiences to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo.
Chew is married to Vivian Kao they usually have two kids.
What’s Chew’s status?
People know comparatively little about Chew in comparison with different Silicon Valley social media giants equivalent to Fb’s Mark Zuckerberg, mentioned Brooke Erin Duffy, a Cornell College professor who research social media platforms.
“Chew has been within the background on public discourse till now, so he would not have the identical status we might affiliate with the Silicon Valley set, particularly Zuckerberg,” she mentioned.
Most People probably first heard of Chew when he launched a video this week talking on to TikTok’s U.S. customers, she mentioned, “so he would not have the identical status as somebody we all know, and (we) do not have sense of who he’s.”
However Chew is well-respected throughout the U.S. and China tech communities. He was thought-about a superb match for TikTok due to his background in funding banking and his time at Fb and DST World, mentioned Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities.
“He gained a variety of respect simply by taking that top threat, in-the-hot seat position at TikTok,” Ives mentioned, including that the corporate probably thought he was the suitable individual to ease tensions with U.S. lawmakers.
Why is Chew showing earlier than U.S. lawmakers?
Chew is going through intense questioning earlier than the U.S. Home Committee on Power and Commerce as a doable ban of TikTok is gaining momentum in Washington.
The listening to Thursday facilities on TikTok’s “shopper privateness and information safety practices, how the platform impacts kids, and its relationship with the Chinese language Communist Get together,” or CCP, in keeping with the committee.
Nationwide safety specialists have warned that TikTok, which has 150 million American customers, might be used to spy on People or as a propaganda device by the Chinese language authorities. Advocates for banning the app within the U.S. mentioned TikTok’s China-based mother or father firm, ByteDance, might be pressured to share consumer information with the CCP.
TikTok has already been banned on federal authorities units, together with army units. The Justice Division is investigating ByteDance for probably spying on U.S. residents, together with journalists, CBS Information confirmed final week. ByteDance mentioned in a press release that it “strongly condemned” the actions of these concerned they usually have been not employed by the corporate.
Privateness specialists have careworn that there isn’t any proof that TikTok has shared information with the Chinese language authorities, nor that its information assortment is extra invasive than that of many American apps equivalent to YouTube, Instagram, or relationship and procuring apps. Nonetheless, TikTok’s standing as a Chinese language-owned firm makes some national-security specialists nervous.
What has Chew mentioned to lawmakers to this point?
Chew instructed the Home panel that TikTok is constructing “what quantities to a firewall that seals off protected U.S. consumer information from unauthorized international entry,” together with the institution of a brand new company entity to supervise the dealing with of U.S. consumer information.
He additionally assured lawmakers that TikTok’s method has “by no means been to dismiss or trivialize” issues about “undesirable international entry to U.S. information and potential manipulation of the TikTok U.S. ecosystem.”
“Right now, U.S. TikTok information is saved by default in Oracle’s servers,” the CEO mentioned. “Solely vetted personnel working in a brand new firm, referred to as TikTok U.S. Knowledge Safety, can management entry to this information.”
Chew mentioned TikTok plans to take American consumer information and ship it to an unbiased American board for assessment.
He added, “The underside line is that this: American information saved on American soil, by an American firm, overseen by American personnel.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.
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