10 Chait, Kathmandu. The Chief Executive Officer of Tiktok has been questioned by the US Parliament. The US Congress took a five-hour statement from Tiktok CEO Suzhi Chiu regarding the mental health of children around the world and playing with US security.
Parliament took a statement from him to explain the reasons why TikTok should not be banned in the US. A debate has raged in the US over the TikTok ban, with states saying the Chinese application added a challenge to children’s mental health and national security.
It is estimated that one and a half million Americans are using TikTok. During the statement, Chiu said that no one’s data would be used in an unauthorized or unethical manner. After the United States repeatedly expressed interest in their data, even the Chinese Communist Party stated that the data would not be tampered with.
American data resides on American servers. According to Chiu, 1500 people have been employed in collaboration with American company Oracle by spending one and a half billion US dollars for data security.
No one supported Tiktok in the Parliament. Many argued that it had a negative effect on children. The MPs claimed that TikTok was putting children at risk of sexual abuse. Democrat MP Cathy Castor said: ‘The need to build apps with child safety in mind has been overshadowed by the focus on profit.’
After raising questions about the privacy of the app, it is being said that the app will not run at the behest of the Chinese government. Their reply was, ‘We will not promote or remove content on TikTok at the request of the Chinese government’.
Tiktok responded that it will protect Tiktok users from any government interference and is very sensitive to the safety of children. In Congress, 10 Democrats and 10 Republican lawmakers have agreed to a motion that the Biden administration should ban Tiktok. A law should be brought to enforce it.
According to Tiktok, there is a condition that the Biden administration will not impose sanctions on the US only if the ownership rights of Chinese investors are returned. China’s Ministry of Commerce has warned that if the US bans TikTok, it should consider Chinese investments and sales of goods in the US.
Democratic MP Tony Caden said that TikTok has had a serious impact on the mental health of children. “We ourselves must protect our children from companies that don’t care about children’s safety for their own interests,” she said.
America is intensifying efforts to ban Tiktok. Earlier, he had given Tiktok a chance to speak. It is not certain when the ban will be imposed, but the parliament seems to be unanimous on banning TikTok.
If the Biden administration bans TikTok, relations between Washington and Beijing are sure to crack further. A committee of the US Parliament has approved a bill on the ban and if the bill becomes a law, the President will have the power to ban TikTok if he sees fit.
US President Joe Biden himself has ordered the removal of the TikTok app from all smartphones owned by the federal government.