TikTok is rolling out a charm offensive ahead of Thursday’s congressional hearing, posting CEO Shou Zi Chew in users’ feeds to warn them of an impending ban. Chew posted a minute-long video on the ByteDance subsidiary’s official TikTok account, calling on users to defend the app.
Chew’s video outlines points he’s likely to see in his testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this week, where lawmakers will question whether China’s ownership of the app makes it unreliable. That includes the news that TikTok now has 150 million US users — something news outlets recently reported based on prior information about his testimony. “That’s almost half of the US coming to TikTok,” he notes, noting that the number includes 5 million US companies. “The majority of these are small and medium-sized businesses.”
We also learn that TikTok has 7,000 US employees, which is less than the 10,000 or more that TikTok aimed for 2020 but a giant leap from the 1,400 U.S. employees that year.
But on to the bad news. “Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok,” says Chew. While it’s a somewhat odd assessment given that the “starting up” happened nearly three years ago and it was “talking about” signing an executive order issuing a ban, it’s true that the issue has changed from a vague Donald Trump’s demand for a mainstream political stance in recent months. “This could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.” Chew doesn’t do anything as clumsy as urging users to participate in the democratic process by contacting their local congressman, but he do ask them to “let me know in the comments what you want your chosen reps to know about what you love about TikTok.” The best comment yet: “You know something’s gone wrong when the boss has to show up.”
“Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok.”
But unsurprisingly, Chew finally points out an obvious fact: Locking out TikTok the US would be an almost unprecedented move that large numbers of Americans would take notice, and TikTok bets they won’t like it.
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