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Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The CEO of TikTok will testify before Congress to address concerns surrounding the social media app's links to the Chinese Communist Party and its impact on children, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced Monday. Committee members will also question Shou Zi Chew about TikTok's consumer privacy and data security practices when he appears before the panel on Capitol Hill in March.
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The committee's chair, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), said that big tech had increasingly become a "destructive force" in American society.
She said her committee had been at the forefront of asking the CEOs of the technology giants -- from Facebook to Twitter to Google -- to answer for the actions of their companies and that these efforts would continue with TikTok.
''ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data. Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms.
''We've made our concerns clear with TikTok. It is now time to continue the committee's efforts to hold Big Tech accountable by bringing TikTok before the committee to provide complete and honest answers for people."
TikTok is one of the world's most popular apps, with more than a billion users, including 135 million in the United States. The app, however, has faced increased scrutiny amid national security fears over its links to China. U.S. agencies are concerned the data TikTok collects is open to misuse by the Chinese government.
At least a dozen states -- Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Utah, Alabama, Idaho, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Kentucky -- have moved to ban the app on government-issued devices citing privacy concerns in recent months.
Last month, the Senate passed legislation to ban TikTok from government-issued devices. The No TikTok on Government Devices Act by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was passed by unanimous consent.
"TikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party," Hawley said in a statement after his measure was passed. "It's a major security risk to the United States and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices."
On Wednesday, Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Hawley introduced a bill to the House for a total ban. The No TikTok on the United States Devices Act would prohibit TikTok from being downloaded on U.S. devices and ban commercial activity with TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.
In August 2020, then-President Donald Trump went as far as to issue an executive order prohibiting any U.S. business with ByteDance after threatening to pull TikTok from U.S. digital storefronts unless the company sold its U.S. business to Microsoft.
At the time, Trump said TikTok and the Chinese messaging app WeChat, which he also sought to ban, automatically capture vast swaths of information from their users, which could potentially be used by Beijing for purposes including spying on Chinese nationals in the United States.
However, some experts have suggested such concerns are overblown. A study by Milton Mueller and Karim Farhat, professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy's Internet Governance Project, found that much of the data collected by TikTok would not be useful for espionage purposes. Mueller told UPI that much of the outrage is a cover for anti-China policies.
