The most dangerous thing for TikTok that came out of this hearing was that every word that CEO Chu said now becomes material for the app's critics. He basically walked into a room that from the drop, from the opening statements, from the lawmakers was really clear that they were coming from a stance of disbelief to anything he was going to say. It became a very kind of feverish moment and they just did not get out of this unscathed. If anything, the tensions between Washington and TikTok may not be worse than they were before.
There’s at least one thing Democrats and Republicans in Washington have in common: suspicions about TikTok’s ties to China. The Biden administration and members of congress from both parties are urging the social media platform’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance Ltd., to sell its stake in TikTok or risk being banned in the US.
Sound familiar? That’s because two and a half years ago, former President Trump sent a very similar warning that ultimately went nowhere.
Bloomberg reporters Alex Barinka and Anna Edgerton join this episode to talk about this latest chapter in the standoff between the US government and TikTok. Plus, what a congressional hearing with TikTok’s CEO revealed about national security concerns surrounding the app.
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