Lawmakers repeatedly pressed Chi on TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government due to the platform being owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. Chi, born in Singapore and still residing there with his three children, was asked about having a Chinese passport or applying for Chinese citizenship, to which he responded that he hasn’t done so, despite living in Beijing for five years, as reported by The New York Times.
He was also questioned about the progress of TikTok’s billion-dollar plan to block sensitive U.S. user data. The hearing featured CEOs from five tech companies, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Linda Yaccarino from Ex, Shou Zi Chew from TikTok, Evan Spiegel from Snapchat, and Jason Citron from Discord. Notably absent was a representative from YouTube, the most popular platform among teenagers in the U.S., with 93% of them using the service, according to a 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center.
Josh Sorebe, a spokesperson for the Senate committee, stated that the five companies presented a variety of products that employed different methods to monitor child sexual abuse materials. The absence of YouTube from the hearing might be due to previous scrutiny it faced. Additionally, the European Commission requested more information from YouTube last year about protecting the physical and mental health of young users.
In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission fined Google $170 million to settle allegations that YouTube collected user data illegally from underage users. YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, stated last week that any content endangering minors is unacceptable, and the company has made its detection technology available to other companies and non-governmental organizations.
In 2022, YouTube reported over 631,000 pieces of child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to a Google report. Apple was also absent from the hearing, having abandoned plans in 2021 to scan files stored on iCloud, its cloud storage platform, for child sexual abuse material, prompting activists to urge the company to do more.
An Apple spokesperson mentioned in a message last August that Eric Neuenschwander, Apple’s head of child safety, stated, “Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent, and we are committed to breaking the chain of extortion and impact on children.”
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