Watching the hearing on TikTok right now, and the amount of leading questions and interruption to the CEO trying to answer questions is so extremely unprofessional and irritating.
This is a hearing— let us ACTUALLY HEAR him.
— Olivia Julianna 🗳 (@0liviajulianna) March 23, 2023
For a lot of those watching — and live-tweeting, or replying on TikTok itself – the spectacle looked like a CEO being hectored by out-of-touch legislators over issues that plenty of companies face.
If you think the US needs a TikTok ban and not a comprehensive privacy law regulating data brokers, you don’t care about privacy, you just hate that a Chinese company has built a dominant social media platform.
— Eva (@evacide) March 23, 2023
Congressional hearings would be much better if Committee rules prohibited loaded questions. Not all questions can be answered with yes/no answers. https://t.co/LvmZgU3A3i
— Daniel Castro (@castrotech) March 23, 2023
It’s a common theme that Congress can look out of touch on technology in social media hearings — it’s a critique that comes up whenever tech executives get hauled in front of committees. The questioners themselves make easy targets for tech-savvy watchers.
There are reasonable arguments, of course, that lawmakers don’t need to be tech experts to make effective laws. But a key twist, this time, was China.
Behind all the questions about kids’ safety and misinformation, a central thread of the hearing was that TikTok is owned by a Chinese parent company, and its data might — might — end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Or might be there right now.
Politically, this feels like a winning issue in Washington. But it also struck a lot of TikTok users and tech insiders as pretty alienating — even xenophobic:
@xiandivyne This hearing is a mess #fyp #xiandivyne #tiktokban #tiktokhearing #shouchew #uspolitics ♬ original sound – Christian Divyne
@tik_tok_stitcher #testifying #congress #sickening #greenscreen ♬ original sound – Dave Loughney
Even the founder of Parler chimed in:
I am no TikTok fan. But the US government banning TikTok over alleged Chinese ties are wrong. Its paranoia rooted in the fact that all tech companies must cooperate and provide data to US gov as arms of it’s surveillance system. They assume China is the same as US.
— John Matze 💙 (@john_matze) March 23, 2023
Does it matter what TikTok users think of Congress? It might, if Congress cracks down and the app’s loyal users get mad.
It probably won’t in the near term: the House has little authority and less willpower to do something right now, and on the one Senate bill that might make a difference to social-media regulation, House members haven’t even even picked up the pen to write their own draft.
And in the bigger war of political theater versus real public opinion, aggressive questioning of the TikTok CEO won them very few fans anywhere else. Across the political spectrum, those watching — from a Bernie supporter to a MAGA supporter — pointed out how little Shou Zi Chew was actually allowed to say without being cut off (even when the question was relevant to TikTok). A prominent influencer made a TikTok about it. Rep. Maxwell Frost and a Gen Z activist both called out the performative nature of the hearing.
Call it, at best, a generational draw. Chew’s performance did not sway the House Energy and Commerce Committee — but they didn’t come across well to their digital audience either.