The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party reached out to TikTok CEO Show Zi Chew May 10, expressing deep unease over the platform's recent acts of censorship.
The lawmakers' unease was heightened after TikTok, which is owned by Bytedance and may have links to the Chinese Communist Party, suspended an account belonging to the Acton Institute, according to WISPolitics. According to reports, TikTok suspended the Acton Institute's account allegedly because the content posted was not in line with the views of the Chinese Communist Party.
“Foreign adversaries should not be allowed to censor Americans’ speech directly or indirectly or to control the information space through which Americans access news,” the lawmakers said in the letter to Chew.
Action Institute reportedly shared clips of a documentary about Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong journalist who was sent to prison for his open pro-democracy stance, WISPolitics reported. In addition, there are reports suggesting the platform tracks users who view LGBTQ+ content and those who use certain terms that are not aligned with the CCP's views.
The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has demanded more information from Chew on several issues, including clarification of the community guidelines, the process of monitoring individuals who view LGBTQ+ content and other matters. The committee has set a deadline of May 24 for a response, according to the letter.
"These latest examples of censorship and tracking reinforce the very serious concerns described above. TikTok’s stock answer — that in some cases, it has reinstated content or halted a particular tracking technique — is inadequate because TikTok has never adequately explained how those censorship decisions were made in the first instance or given a complete and comprehensive explanation of how its community guidelines operate in practice," stated the lawmakers in the letter. "That means that, for every egregious decision that is reversed after a public outcry, there are likely many more such censorship decisions that fly under the radar and therefore aren’t reversed."
