Congressman skeptical of TikTok’s plan to remain in the US.

Is TikTok’s Proposal Just Smoke and Mirrors?

The House Homeland Security Committee chairman, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), has called out TikTok’s proposal for remaining in the United States as nothing more than “artful deception.” The social media company’s plan fails to address its link to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is a growing concern for many Americans.

The Risks Remain

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing and is subject to Chinese laws that require all data to be surrendered to the government upon request. With 150 million U.S. users, TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms in the country, raising concerns about how it could use the massive user data it can harvest from the U.S. population.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has stated that “TikTok surveils us all, and the Chinese Communist Party is able to use this as a tool to manipulate America as a whole. We do not trust TikTok will ever embrace American values.”

Unanswered Questions

Green has demanded answers from TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, regarding the app’s source code and whether anyone in China could access it. TikTok’s response was that the company has “software engineers throughout the world, including the United States and China.”

However, Green remains unsatisfied with TikTok’s response and has major concerns regarding backdoors in the app’s source code that could give the CCP complete access and control.

A Fig Leaf?

TikTok’s partnership with U.S. software developer Oracle, known as Project Texas, aims to address lawmakers’ concerns by screening TikTok software and code. Oracle will host all TikTok source code in its cloud infrastructure and inspect the code along with a separate third-party source code inspector to identify potential vulnerabilities.

However, Green believes that Project Texas is just a “fig leaf” for TikTok to remain operational in the United States. He remains concerned about backdoors in the app’s source code that could give the CCP complete access and control.

It remains to be seen whether TikTok’s proposal will be enough to satisfy lawmakers and ensure the app’s continued operation in the United States.