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Congress gears up for TikTok hearing
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Republicans are going on offense against potential company talking points ahead of the CEO's testimony Thursday. |
Days before TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, GOP committee aides are highlighting several talking points they suggest the company may use to defend itself against criticism regarding the app. The aides said to expect the CEO to focus on "Project Texas," which is a plan designed by the company to address security concerns by routing U.S. user traffic through Oracle's domestic cloud servers. The aides argued in a call Monday that the project is "purely marketing," adding it's unclear if the deal "will ever be reached." They also highlighted stories they say TikTok is unlikely to bring up at the hearing, including allegations of sexual abuse targeting minors on the platform, children who died after attempting to TikTok challenges and teenagers who died of fentanyl overdoses. "These are all problems and major concerns that the committee has raised…and we have yet to receive adequate answers for how it plans to address the issues and keep children safe," one aide said. The aide said Chew is also expected to argue against banning the app because of its popularity. "They've clearly recognized that they can't convince the Biden administration, the various national security agencies or Congress that TikTok is not an immediate threat to American interests and national security," the aide said. "So instead they're pivoting to attempt to use the court of public opinion and TikTok's popularity with younger generations to try to make it politically toxic to ban the app." The Biden administration has threatened to ban the app in the U.S. if ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, does not sell its stake to an American company. The Hill has reached out to TikTok for comment. |
Welcome to The Hill's Technology newsletter, I'm Ines Kagubare — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. |
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How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future: |
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced Monday that the company will be laying off another 9,000 employees, marking the second round of significant layoffs this year. These cuts are in addition to the 18,000 layoffs Jassy announced in January, which had started in November. Jassy said in a memo to employees on Monday that most of the cuts will affect Amazon Web Services; People Experience and Technology Solutions; advertising; and … |
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In four short months, the GPT family of artificial intelligence chatbots have upended higher education like nothing since the arrival of Wi-Fi connections in classrooms. ChatGPT and its smarter, younger cousin, GPT-4, can create a realistic facsimile of a college term paper on command, or populate the answers to a midterm. At the start of the 2022-23 academic year, few professors had heard of it. They are learning fast. "I … |
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News we've flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics: |
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BBC demands staff remove TikTok from company phones |
The British news outlet has asked that its staff members delete the social media app from company devices following a similar ban from the U.K. government, The Guardian reported. |
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How AI is impacting the workforce |
A look at how artificial intelligence is breaking new ground with technology that could impact the workforce, including sectors like banking and finance, health care and pharmaceuticals, writing and marketing, and retail, via The Washington Post. |
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Upcoming news themes and events we're watching: |
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Chew on Thursday at 10 a.m.
- The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection will hold a hearing on the state of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the committee's CISA 2025 initiative on Thursday at 10 a.m.
- The House Oversight and Accountability Committee will hold a hearing on the White House National Cybersecurity Strategy on Thursday at 2 p.m.
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Two key stories on The Hill right now: |
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Michael Cohen, ex-personal attorney to Donald Trump, says his testimony was not needed on Monday as a rebuttal witness, after the Manhattan grand jury … Read more |
| Former President Trump quickly took a swipe Monday at Ron DeSantis, his main potential rival for the GOP presidential nomination, after the Florida … Read more |
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