The CEO of TikTok claims that efforts by its China-based parent company to stalk American journalists do not qualify as “surveillance” or “spying.”
The comments referred to an ongoing Department of Justice investigation regarding how employees at the China-based ByteDance, which owns TikTok, illicitly used TikTok data to track American journalists without their knowledge.
When asked if TikTok could prevent similar use of its data in the future by ByteDance employees, TikTok CEO Shou Chew said that ByteDance had not conducted surveillance on Americans.
“I first of all disagree with the characterization that it was spying,” Chew said during a March 23 House Energy and Commerce hearing on the issue of TikTok’s data privacy practices….