Will TikTok die on this Hill?

TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew (周受资 Zhōu Shòuzī), is set to testify before a U.S. House committee on Thursday in a bid to convince Washington not to ban the popular Chinese-owned social media app from the country.

Chew has offered a slew of promises to safeguard “minor safety, data privacy and security, real-world harms from online activities, and the risk of foreign content manipulation” on the platform, according to his written testimony released ahead of his hearing on Thursday.

“TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made,” Chew stated.

His statement comes as part of the company’s broader campaign to defend itself against growing pressure in Washington to purge the app from the country. Growing calls from U.S. officials have voiced concerns that Beijing could legally require the company to hand over American users’ data, or could push its political agenda through the platform’s content.

Chew also posted a video on the app on Tuesday appealing directly to the app’s 150 million U.S. users. “Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok,” he said. “Now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.”

About 30 of the platform’s content creators have gathered in Washington, D.C. for a rally this week to advocate for TikTok, with many arguing for the beneficial impacts on their livelihoods and communities.

(Chew also seems to have rebranded himself: He formerly went by Shou Zi Chew in English, but now seems to be using just Shou Chew. He wore a hoodie for the TikTok video he posted.)

Biden’s TikTok ban?

Just last week, the Biden administration raised the potential for a country-wide ban on TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, unless the Chinese owners sell their stakes. The move echoes previous unsuccessful attempts led by former President Donald J. Trump in 2020 to purge TikTok from the U.S. unless ByteDance agreed to sell all of its U.S. operations to American owners.

That same year, the Chinese owner of popular gay dating app Grindr was also forced to sell the platform on similar grounds.

“I would note that it will be very difficult to force ByteDance to divest. There is a precedent of forced divestment in the case of Grindr, but that was prior to China’s export controls taking effect,” Aynne Kokas, C.K. Yen Professor at the Miller Center and an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, as well as the author of Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty, told The China Project today. “With legions of TikTokers currently descending on Washington, there will also be an uphill battle in banning the app for public use.”

To save its standing, TikTok has stepped up its lobbying efforts in the U.S.: ByteDance invested more than $5.2 million last year, about one and a half times the amount spent in 2020.

Meanwhile, Beijing has taken legal measures to stop ByteDance from selling its shares without governmental consent, and is likely to prohibit the company from releasing its algorithm technology.

Can TikTok stop the Chinese government from getting its data?

TikTok’s political saga comes at a time when governments, fueled by growing mistrust, have started to erect regulatory borders to control the flow of national data and safeguard their digital assets.

TikTok has claimed it has shelled out more than $1.5 billion on “Project Texas,” a partnership with U.S.-based cloud software group Oracle to “ensure that the data of all Americans is stored in America and hosted by an American headquartered company.” Oracle is also reviewing TikTok’s source code to assess any security risks.

Chew’s testimony says that earlier in March, the company “began the process of deleting historical protected U.S. user data stored in non-Oracle servers.” That process should be completed this year. Chew says that will mean “all protected U.S. data will be under the protection of U.S. law and under the control of the U.S.-led security team,” and that there will be “no way for the Chinese government to access it or compel access to it.”

TikTok has rolled out a similar plan in Europe called “Project Clover” amid reports that the U.K. will ban the use of TikTok on government devices, following similar moves made by Canada, the Netherlands, the EU, and the U.S.

But TikTok’s efforts may not be enough to mollify national security fears in the West. As

Lizhi Liu, an assistant professor in the McDonough School of Business and a faculty affiliate of the Department of Government at Georgetown University, wrote in a 2021 paper on the Trump-led proposed ban:

This reflects a commitment problem facing TikTok: The firm cannot credibly commit ex ante that it will not share user data with the Chinese government ex post. Although every firm has a similar commitment problem, firms from an authoritarian country suffer from it more because authoritarian countries do not have strong institutional constraints on the ruler’s arbitrary power.

“The issues remain the same,” Liu told The China Project today.

Since 2015, China has sought to control its digital technologies and online content by ensuring that everything operates and is subjected to the laws within its borders. This includes the production, processing, and housing of its massive troves of data.

On the other hand, the U.S. and European nations do not exercise the same state-controlled regulatory policies, leaving large swaths of their data unguarded. This means that the data of their citizens could more easily fall into the hands of the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, Beijing doubled down on its stance on cross-border data regulation: “States should not request domestic companies to store data generated and obtained overseas in their own territory,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wāng Wénbīn 汪文斌 said last week when asked about the U.K.’s investigation into TikTok’s ownership. “States should respect the sovereignty, jurisdiction and governance of data of other states, and shall not obtain data located in other states through companies or individuals without other states’ permission.”