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TikTok, the short video app owned by Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, has issued a statement in response to the backlash it is facing in the US over national security risk. Reports have indicated that TikTok was censoring pro-democracy videos from Hong Kong but it has said that it doesn’t operate in China and is not obliged to censor content on the Chinese government’s request.
TikTok is now among one of the few Chinese social media apps to gain popularity in the western countries. US lawmakers had raised concerns that such apps could be used to spy on US citizens or become targets of foreign influence campaigns. Senior senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton had written to US intelligence officials asking to investigate TikTok for possible national security threats.
In response, TikTok wrote about its position on data privacy and security, as well as concerns over content censorship over the platform. It maintained that the data centres of the TikTok are “located entirely outside of China, and none of the data is subject to Chinese law”.
“We store all TikTok US user data in the United States, with backup redundancy in Singapore,” TikTok said in the statement.
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The US Congress also expressed concerns over TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly asserting that the relaunched app is censoring content that is critical of the Chinese government or which includes discussion of topics like Tiananmen Square or the Hong Kong protests.
In an earlier statement, TikTok maintained that its moderators receive no input from the Chinese government and it reiterated the same in the new statement. It said that neither does it remove content based on sensitivities related to China nor is it obliged to the Chinese government’s request to do so.
“We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period,” TikTok wrote in the statement.
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It said that its US moderation team is based out in California, which is tasked with reviewing content for adherence to its US policies. “We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government; TikTok does not operate in China, nor do we have any intention of doing so in the future,” TikTok said.
